Montreal General Hospital 18th floor experiencing COVID-19 outbreak

There is a rise of COVID-19 cases on the 18th floor of the Montreal General Hospital. This comes as health experts are closely monitoring the outbreak and hospitalizations in Quebec.

“The most important thing to do is to isolate patients who are sick in the short term. And then in the long term, is to really work on indoor air quality,” said Dr. Christopher Labos, Montreal cardiologist and epidemiologist.

The hospital has re-established a mandatory mask policy for everyone on that unit and they are all being monitored for symptoms.

“This situation does not impact the quality of care provided to patients,” wrote MUHC spokesperson Bianca Ledoux-Cancilla in an email to CityNews. “Our teams are closely monitoring these patients for COVID-19-related symptoms, and screening is carried out according to the presence of symptoms and the level of risk assessed by the Infection Prevention and Control team.”

According to data from July 10, the province’s national health institute – the INSPQ – reported 756 patients were hospitalized with a positive COVID diagnosis.

“Most people have assumed that COVID is going to follow the same sort of pattern that we see with influenza and other respiratory viruses that they’ll surge in the winter and then go away in the summer. And COVID doesn’t seem to do that. We do have summer waves. We do see more cases,” said Dr. Labos.

The number of cases has been steadily climbing since April.

“Patient and staff safety is of utmost importance to us. In the event of an outbreak of COVID-19, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) implements all protective measures recommended by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ). It is important to note that the unit is not closed to admissions or transfers,” explained Ledoux-Cancilla.

The INSPQ noted that 14.7 per cent of the 4,333 eligible COVID-19 tests taken last week were positive.

Experts say vacations and trips outside Quebec and Canada have led to new mutations of the virus now circulating here and that latest variant has caused more people to become infected once again.

“We now know and have more fully appreciated that it is an airborne spread virus. [JOIN] Clip Labos: Looking forward to not just our hospitals, but also our schools and our places of business. If we can improve indoor air quality, we will see less COVID and also less influenza and less other respiratory illnesses,” explained Dr. Labos.

In total, there have been 518 deaths recorded since January in Quebec due to COVID, with 22 occurring during the week of June 30. A year ago, the province was seeing 100 deaths a week around the same time.

“We are very likely going to start treating COVID in the same way that we treat influenza, which is a different vaccine every year to better match the circulating strains. And so when the vaccines become available for both influenza and COVID-19, my recommendation is that people get both of them,” said Labos.