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All Quebec Shopping Malls & Restaurant Dining Areas Must Close As Of Tonight At Midnight
- In a press conference today, on March 22, Premier François Legault announced that all Quebec shopping malls and restaurant dining areas must close starting tonight at midnight, until May 1.
- Get more information below.
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As he has been consistently doing during the past week, Premier François Legault had a public debriefing today to update the public about the current coronavirus situation in the province. In today's press conference, on March 22, Legault made some major announcements about new protective measures against COVID-19 in Quebec that will be taking place. This includes the closing of all Quebec shopping malls and restaurant dining areas.
Starting tonight at midnight until May 1, all shopping malls will have to close. This will not include food stores, pharmacies, and SAQ stores.
Any store that has an outside door, Legault specifies, will be able to remain open. But, if getting to a store involves going inside, it must close.
The Premier says this decision was made because there continued to be too many people inside shopping malls, although Quebecers have been told to practice social distancing.
Among other things, the Government of Quebec has now made it mandatory for all restaurants to close their dining areas. Restaurants in Quebec can now only have take-out as an option, until May 1 as well.
Legault says the Government of Quebec is encouraging restaurants that do not have take-out as an option, to start doing so. This will help their business continue to make revenue during this time.
The government is also asking that all hair salons and aesthetic salons be closed until May 1 also, since it is impossible to respect the 2 m apart distancing.
You can watch a live feed of the press conference here, or from the link below. You may also read a transcription of it here.
Tout ce qu’on a fait au Québec depuis 10 jours va faire une différence. Mais ce n’est surtout pas le temps de relâc… https://t.co/3Wa5EYAJ5K— François Legault (@François Legault) 1584896183.0
Since yesterday, March 21, Quebec has accelerated the number of tests for COVID-19, which Legault explains is a correlation to the reason that the number of confirmed cases is rising at a fast pace.
On this note, he said that it is likely that tomorrow, March 23, Quebec will see the largest jump in the number of confirmed cases since this is when a large volume of results will be coming in.
As of today, March 22, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Quebec has reached a total of 219, with 24 people that remain hospitalized. That makes 38 more cases than what was confirmed by Santé Québec yesterday.
#COVID19 – Au Québec, en date du 22 mars 13h, la situation est la suivante: ➡️219 cas confirmés ➡️4 décès ➡️1 pers… https://t.co/oINa9dRRQM— Santé Québec (@Santé Québec) 1584897013.0
In good news, there have been no additional deaths in the province since yesterday. There have no been a total of four deaths in Quebec due to coronavirus.
It was previously thought to be five, but tests show that one death was not caused by COVID-19 finally.
Quebec health officials released guidelines for individuals to follow to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in the province. You can read about them here.
More information on hygiene practices during the pandemic is available on the government of Canada's website here.