On the morning of October 27, Deputy Provost Fabrice Labeau emailed the McGill community about the Quebec government’s decision to extend the red zone restrictions to November 23.
These restrictions were previously scheduled to end on October 28. Labeau noted that current McGill operations will not change and called on the McGill community to “stay the course and follow public health guidelines.”
Labeau also provided links to mental health and related resources for employees and students, as well as a reminder to check the operational status page of McGill’s coronavirus website to see an overview of what is open or closed, and permitted or not permitted.
This announcement comes after Quebec surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 infections. Quebec is still seeing 800 to 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day, and according to Premier François Legault, the number of daily cases, deaths and hospitalizations have not dropped enough to justify lifting the partial lockdown.
In a press conference on Monday, Legault said,”During the first 28 days, we were able to stabilize. We think it will take another 28 days to see a reduction.”
Montreal has been under red zone restrictions since early October. The 28-day partial lockdown was supposed to end Wednesday October 28, but Legault has said the measures will stay in place until the number of cases goes down.
“Public health officials will re-evaluate the situation in two weeks”, according to Legault, “and we could lift some restrictions if there is a significant drop in new cases.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
