Boileau asks Quebecers to skip holiday parties, gatherings if sick

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    “We expect the COVID situation to get worse than it is right now,” said Dr. Luc Boileau. Quebec's public health director urged prudence, as COVID-19, RSV and influenza circulate. Brittany Henriques reports.

    By News Staff

    Quebec’s public health director is urging Quebecers to stay home and miss their holiday parties if they’re showing even mild symptoms of illness, or recently recovered from an illness.

    Dr. Luc Boileau acknowledged the province’s epidemiological situation is “fragile” and urged prudence, as COVID-19, RSV and influenza circulate.

    He said the province is in “recommendation” mode, and would not be imposing mandatory measures.

    “We are taking into consideration a lot of aspects and we still do not recommend, will not recommend to get more intensive approach for the regulation of the contagiousness with the wearing masks situation, or reduce the gatherings during this Christmastime or New Year time,” said Boileau.

    But the warnings come as Quebec registered its highest number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19 – 2,081 – since Oct. 19.

    RELATED: Quebec COVID-19 hospitalizations reach highest level since October

    Boileau says anyone who’s sick should stay away from Christmas or New Year’s parties, family gatherings in general, and those who are more vulnerable.

    He says anyone with COVID-19 is contagious for 10 days.

    “So there’s a message of being really careful with that to just stay out of any gatherings if we have symptoms,” he said. “If we had symptoms during the last 10 days before and especially if we had confirmed that we had the COVID. And if so, please get really careful for everyone.”

    The public health director says parties are the perfect place for a virus to propagate. He pointed to American Thanksgiving, claiming hospitalizations and cases there went up two weeks later.

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    Boileau says RSV within children is trending downward, calling it good news for pediatric hospitals.

    He says influenza data show the peak may have been reached, but it’s not trending down just yet.


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    He says COVID-19 – and the variants circulating right now – is the one Quebec health officials are most worried about, and they foresee an uptick during the holidays.

    “We expect the COVID situation to get worse than it is right now,” said Boileau. “It’s obvious that there will be more contacts between people during the next couple of weeks. And especially between generations, so there will be kids, older people, and there’s a strong risk of contamination.

    “And especially with the new variants that are now in place, really well in place with over 80 per cent of BQ.1 or BQ 1.1 which are really more contagious than the ones we had before. So there’s certainly a risk of increasing contagiosity in the communities. And that has consequences, more people would get to the hospitals and need to be hospitalized and probably more death in relation to that.”

    Boileau did recommend masking – especially in high-traffic areas – and vaccination as solutions.

    He also advised Quebecers to work from home, where possible.

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    Influenza cases continue to rise in Canada
    Canada continues to see an increase of influenza activity right across the country, and it is impacting young children and older adults. Alex Karpa reports.
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