Legault Says COVID-19 Cases Are 'Stabilizing' & Hospitalizations Will Soon Peak In Quebec

Premier François Legault began his Thursday press conference with: "We have good news" — which isn't something Quebecers hear every day. The reason for Legault's positivity amid widespread pandemic fatigue is that "the number of infections is stabilizing," according to experts.

"[The number of] new cases has peaked. The wave of hospitalizations is expected to peak in the next coming days," Premier Legault said. "This means that the measures we've put in place have worked. We're going in the right direction but we have to remain very careful."

Legault clarified that the number of hospitalizations is still "very high" and may continue to increase for a few days, with this weekend being one of the hardest on the health care network since the start of the pandemic. But they are expected to begin decreasing after that.

As a result, Legault announced that the province will be lifting its nightly curfew on Monday and will allow stores to open on Sundays again as of January 23.

"The reason we [implemented the curfew] was to stop the exponential growth of the number of infections and then the number of hospitalizations. So given that we seem to have reached a peak, that permits us to remove the curfew," Legault said.

Schools are also officially reopening on January 17 as planned.

Quebec reported 8,793 new COVID-19 cases on January 13. Hospitalizations increased by a net 117 patients for an active total of 2,994. This includes 272 cases currently in intensive care, a net increase of nine from the day before. The province also officially introduced a Level Five protocol for hospital capacity, with a total of 4,013 hospital beds dedicated to patients with COVID-19.

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.