COVID-19 in Quebec: What you need to know on Thursday
Government gives go-ahead to soccer, baseball teams to resume practising on June 8
The latest:
- Quebec has 52,143 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,885 people have died as of Thursday, an increase of 259 cases and 91 deaths from a day earlier.
- There are 1,076 people in hospital (a decrease of 65), including 146 in intensive care (a decrease of 12). Here's a guide to the numbers.
- The province is allowing training for team sports like soccer and baseball to resume, but there will be no games, for now, and players will have practise physical distancing.
- With schools in the Montreal area closed until September, Quebec is considering setting up a catch-up summer school for struggling students.
- The City of Montreal is feeling the financial impact of COVID-19, and Mayor Valérie Plante is calling on the province and federal governments for help.
- The new program to recruit 10,000 orderlies for understaffed CHSLDs is proving popular.
Soccer and baseball players in Quebec will be able to start practising their sports by June 8, but they won't be able to play competitively until the end of the month — and even then, they won't be playing by the rules they're used to.
"Sports will not be played the same way this summer. We have to be conscious that there will be a lot of adaptation," said Isabelle Charest, the minister responsible for sports, Thursday.
Supervised activities such as outdoor yoga will also be allowed as of June 8, and pools in places such as private campgrounds will also be allowed to open on that date.
Until Thursday's announcement, Quebec had only opened the door to non-contact outdoor sports practised alone or in small groups, such as cycling, rock-climbing, singles tennis and golf.
Fast-tracking projects
The Quebec government wants to get major infrastructure projects back up and running, putting more people back to work, in an effort to relaunch the province's economy nearly three months into the COVID-19 crisis.
If passed, Bill 61, the stimulus package tabled Wednesday by Treasury Board President Christian Dubé, will allow the government to bypass some of the usual checks and balances for major spending projects, to get them off the ground as soon as possible.
The proposed legislation streamlines some of the provisions under Quebec's Environment Quality Act, in order to obtain speedy authorization to move ahead with certain projects, and allows government ministries to move ahead quickly with the expropriation of property.
Students with special needs being invited to school-like 'camps'
While most high school students in Quebec are set to remain at home until September, some students with special needs will be invited to attend what the province's Education Ministry is calling a "pedagogical camp."
The three-week-long camps will be held at high schools, which have remained closed since mid-March, as well as at elementary schools in the greater Montreal region which have yet to reopen.
Quebec's Ministry of Education provided general instructions to school boards in a four-paragraph letter dated June 1, which indicates the camps must be operating by the week of June 8.
