Lanaudière public health director postpones reopening of schools, daycares in Joliette until May 19

Public health authorities in the Lanaudière region are pushing back the reopening date for schools and daycares in the MRC of Joliette, where the region's director of public health says the infection rate is "much higher than expected."

Elementary schools and daycares were to reopen on May 11 throughout Lanaudière, but in L'Assomption, Les Moulins and Joliette and in surrounding communities, they will not open until May 19. 

Apart from the city of Joliette, the regional municipal county includes the villages of Sainte-Mélanie, Saint-Ambroise-de-Kildare, Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Saint-Charles Borromée, Notre-Dame-des-Prairies, Saint-Thomas, Saint-Pierre, Crabtree and Saint-Paul.

Dr. Richard Lessard, director of public health for the region, said Wednesday his office is looking into the circumstances of an outbreak at a daycare — the first major outbreak at a daycare anywhere in the province. The daycare was closed on Monday and will remain closed for two weeks.

"We will thoroughly investigate, and we hope to learn from it," said Lessard.

Sources have told Radio-Canada the affected daycare is in Mascouche, 45 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

In all,12 out of 27 children at that daycare and four staff have been infected.

Lessard said the first child who showed symptoms was tested on April 23, and when those results came back positive on April 30, 27 other children were tested, as were all staff.

Community transmission evident: Lessard

Lanaudière has more than 2,600 COVID-19 cases, and in the past two weeks, a McDonalds and a Walmart in Joliette have also been temporarily closed due to infected employees. 

There is an outbreak at the Lanaudière regional hospital and at more than 20 long-term care homes in the region, as well as at the Joliette federal prison for women.

Roadblocks prevented outsiders from visiting the region until last week, although Lanaudière has already started coming out of lockdown, with many businesses reopening on Monday. 

But the number of cases isn't showing signs of plateauing, said Lessard, as it appears health-care workers are contracting COVID-19 on the job and then transmitting it to others in the community.

The coronavirus first affected the southern parts of the region, closer to Montreal, and then spread north, he said.

It has been growing worse over the last three weeks.

The infection rate in Joliette, the epicentre in the region, stands at 697 per 100,000 inhabitants. That's much lower than the rate in Montreal, which is 844 per 100,000 residents, but far higher than the provincial average of 401 infections per 100,000 people.

Along with cases in the long-term care homes and at the federal women's prison, Lessard said, there have been many new cases that health officials haven't been able to trace the origin of.

"That's what troubled us," said Lessard.

"I don't think our situation is stabilizing — in any case, not enough to be comfortable," he told Radio-Canada. "My concern as director of public health is not to aggravate the situation."