Quebec adds 56 new deaths due to COVID-19 as hospitalizations drop

Quebec to remove vaccine passport Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube says the province will gradually reduce the vaccine passport and eliminate it by March 14.

As COVID-19 hospitalizations keep dropping in Quebec, the number of deaths related to the virus is not. On Tuesday, the province recorded 56 more deaths due to COVID-19, for a total of 13,766 since the start of the pandemic.

Hospitalizations dropped to 2,052 on Tuesday, a decrease of 43 from the day before, after 135 people were admitted and 178 people were discharged from hospital.

Intensive care units also saw a small drop of four fewer patients, for a total of 132.

The health ministry said unvaccinated people are 7.2 times more likely to be hospitalized and 12.2 times more likely to be sent to the ICU compared to double vaccinated people, based on the last four weeks of data.

The positivity rate in Quebec inched up slightly to 9.5 per cent and there are 1,033 active outbreaks across the province.

The ministry said it recorded 1,973 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, although PCR testing is not accessible to the general public in Quebec. Rapid antigen test results were also included in the numbers: 563 positive tests out of the 798 results that were uploaded from the public.

Health-care workers analyzed 16,943 test samples on Feb. 13.

VACCINATION UPDATE

Health-care workers administered another 19,733 doses into people’s arms in the last 24 hours, for a total of 18,218,225 doses.

Most of the new doses that were given out (11,936 doses) were booster shots.

To date, health workers have given out 7,404,354 first doses covering 91 per cent of the eligible population in Quebec, 7,003,333 second doses covering 86 per cent of the population, and 4,024,039 third doses covering 49 per cent of the eligible population.