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Police are stepping up patrols across Montreal to make sure non-essential businesses stay closed and no public gatherings take place as the city declared a state of emergency Friday.
The city reported three new deaths from the COVID-19 respiratory illness, bringing its total to four, as the coronavirus has started to spread beyond the west end to other neighbourhoods.
And although Montreal is not under a formal quarantine, police will not hesitate to ticket any businesses and individuals who flout the prohibition on gatherings or self-isolation orders,
the city’s top public health officer warned.
“We’ve seen an acceleration of cases in the last week,” Dr. Mylène Drouin said at a late-afternoon news conference. “We know that we have community transmission. We have (cases) mostly in
some neighbourhoods, but we know that in a few days it’s going to be in more neighbourhoods.”
To date, the number of COVID-19 infections in Montreal climbed to 971 from 782 on Thursday. Nine people were being treated in intensive care and 59 have been hospitalized.
“We’re not here to (impose) fines and to put police in every neighbourhood,” Drouin said. “We just want to make sure that we have have success in our collective efforts facing this
pandemic.”
Drouin explained that health workers have been unable to reach by phone several dozen people with COVID-19 to confirm they are in self-isolation, and that’s one of the reasons police are
getting involved.
On Thursday, Drouin noted that 42 per cent of all COVID-19 cases were concentrated in the west end, including Côte-St-Luc and Côte-des-Neiges. That percentage has since declined to 38 per
cent as the SARS-Cov-2 virus spreads to Outremont as well the Plateau Mont-Royal, Rosemont and Centre-Sud districts.
The public health department has calculated that Montreal’s COVID-19 infection rate is 36 cases per 100,000 population. By comparison, the rates in Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead hover between
150 to 200 cases per 100,000 population.
Drouin reiterated that the rogue coronavirus might have started spreading following a wedding less than two weeks ago in the west end.
There are also a smattering of COVID-19 cases on the West Island and the city’s east end, but authorities have yet to observe community transmission in those areas.
Drouin confirmed that three of the four Montrealers who died are elderly and some were residing in long-term care centres. She added that she didn’t know the age of one of the people who
died.
Despite the ban on public gatherings, Drouin encouraged Montrealers to go out for walks in the early spring, as long as they maintain the social-distancing requirement of staying two metres
apart from people they meet on the street.
Montreal declared a state of emergency, in part, to provide support to the city’s homeless, Mayor Valérie Plante told reporters. The public health department is to announce new measures in
the coming days to deal with the crisis.
Meanwhile, the Jewish General Hospital was treating 40 patients with the potentially pneumonia-inducing illness on Friday, up from 37 the day before. The number of ICU patients rose to 19
from 16 the previous day.
Drouin made clear that the Côte-des-Neiges hospital — which is a designated COVID-19 treatment centre — receives patients from outside of the city, and its figures should not be confused
with those of the public health department.
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, executive director of the centre-west health authority responsible for the Jewish General, told the Montreal Gazette that no patients to date have died in that
hospital.
He maintained that medical staff at the Jewish General have the situation under control. The staff trained more than a month ago in a pandemic simulation.
“There’s been nothing coming out left field,” Rosenberg said. “We’re still in a good position.”
Quebec’s chief public health officer, Horacio Arruda, suggested on Friday that the coronavirus started circulating in Montreal after the end of the March break, when some people returned
from flights abroad. Rosenberg also blamed returning snowbirds.
“Some of the snowbirds who are coming back are not isolating themselves, and that’s a real problem,” Rosenberg said. “We see them walking around the community.”
Privately, some health workers in Montreal are furious with the federal government for not taking steps early enough to better screen those returning from abroad at Pierre Elliott Trudeau
airport and for not closing the Canada-United States border to non-essential travel until only recently.
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This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 8:34 PM.