The City of Montreal, Tourisme Montreal and the Montreal Centre-Ville Commercial Development Corporation are calling for a clear reopening plan to allow the city’s event and cultural industry to plan for the summer season.
© / Radio-Canada
The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, is asking the Government of Quebec for a complete reopening plan and the list of sanitary measures that will be required during spring and summer events, in particular.
We need to have a lot more predictability“, argued the mayor of the City of Montreal, Valérie Plante, at a press conference on Sunday. Other provinces have this plan, have this predictability. Not Quebec.»
Ms. Plante was accompanied by the president and CEO of Tourisme Montréal, Yves Lalumière, and the general manager of the Société de développement commercial Montréal Centre-Ville, Glenn Castanheira.
Montreal deserves better than weekly planning“said Mr. Lalumière.
If last year we were all in the same situation», selon M. Castanheira, This year it’s the opposite“, did he declare. We were the first to confine ourselves to Canada, and we are currently the last to deconfine.»
A risk to Montreal’s reputation
Video: Longueuil will go ahead with the slaughter of deer (Le Devoir)
Click here to enlarge
-
Who are the unvaccinated with COVID-19 in intensive care?
Who are the unvaccinated with COVID-19 in intensive care? Unvaccinated people who account for half of patients with severe COVID-19 in intensive care have a very different medical profile than patients who have adhered to the vaccination schedule. All properly vaccinated people who require intensive care suffer from a significant deficiency in their prior immune system. As for people who are not adequately vaccinated and who end up in an intensive care unit because their COVID-19 has seriously worsened, they in the vast majority of cases have an underlying risk factor. Most often, they have a chronic disease, such as hypertension, diabetes, lung disease or cardiovascular disease. Obesity is also an important risk factor because, when none of these medical conditions are present, being overweight frequently emerges as the factor that played a crucial role in the development of a severe form of COVID-19. . A study published in the International Journal of Obesity and carried out at the CHUM showed that each 10-point increase in body mass index tripled the risk of dying from COVID-19 in intensive care. “All of these factors were described at the start of the pandemic as increasing the risk of developing a severe form of COVID-19 likely to require intensive care,” notes Dr. Madeleine Durand, specialist in internal medicine at the CHUM. However, since then, vaccination has been able to reduce the impact of these risk factors, with the exception of patients with a prior immune system deficiency, which prevents them from responding well to the vaccine. People with obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and lung disease are no longer among those vaccinated who end up in intensive care with severe COVID-19. The factor that most increases the risk of developing a severe form of COVID-19 and ending up in intensive care in people who are not adequately vaccinated is their unvaccinated status. According to data from the Santé Québec site, this relative risk is 12 times higher than that of people who have received two doses of vaccine, or even three doses.
The duty
-
Public Health will give press conferences independent of the government
Public health will give press conferences independent of the government The interim national director of public health, Luc Boileau, will take a little distance from elected officials, following numerous calls for more independence for his function in the face of decisions policies. Mr. Boileau said Tuesday that he will soon organize meetings with the media without government representatives at his side, contrary to what has been the norm since the start of the pandemic. “This idea of having separate press briefings, media contact points, to really explain things and the points of view that emerge from the national leadership, it is retained.” —Luc Boileau, National Director of Public Health Recently in office, Mr. Boileau made this declaration in the presence of the Premier, François Legault, and the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, on Tuesday, during a press conference on further relaxation of sanitary measures. The next events closed to elected officials will be used to “maintain the press on slightly more specific public health subjects [difficiles à étayer lors des conférences régulières], still linked to the pandemic,” the Ministry of Health said in an email. “These conferences will be in addition to the regular conferences where we find government representatives and other officials involved in the management of the pandemic.” In an interview with Le Devoir, the chief scientist of Quebec, Rémi Quirion, called for more independence from public health in the face of the decisions of the Legault government. According to Mr. Quirion, some confusion has been created over the months on the reasons behind the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and health measures. “Is it really the opinion of the experts, or is it the politicians who come in? It’s hard to sort out sometimes,” he said Monday.
The duty
-
Waste management is not improving in Quebec
Waste management is not improving in Quebec Despite government promises and the omnipresence of the discourse on recycling, landfilling of waste in Quebec has experienced “a marked increase” in recent years, concludes the Bureau d public hearings on the environment (BAPE). A report entitled “The inventory and the management of ultimate residues” was published Tuesday by the BAPE. Quebec’s performance since 2015 “has declined for each of the objectives listed in the 2011-2015 Action Plan of the Quebec Residual Materials Management Policy (PQGMR)”, reveals the report. Meanwhile, Quebecers continue to send a lot of garbage, including organic or recyclable materials, directly to landfill or incineration. 724 kg of garbage per inhabitant were sent directly to landfill or incineration per inhabitant of Quebec in 2019. In this context, the BAPE estimates that it is “impossible” to reach the government’s objective of producing 525 kg/inhabitant of waste in 2025. In the current state of things, the BAPE also notes that the province’s “technical landfills” continue to fill up rapidly. If landfilling were to continue at the current rate, 9 of Quebec’s 38 dumps would be full before 2030, and 13 others would be before 2041. on the right track. In their report, they thus suggest “prohibiting the marketing of certain non-recyclable, single-use or short-lived products”, “improving support for consumers through clear display and labeling as to the environmental impacts” and “regulation of solicitation”.
The duty
NEXT VIDEO
The three speakers underlined that Montreal risks losing ground to its competitors, while the planners of sporting and cultural events and of conventions in particular need answers. Some are on the verge of canceling the holding of events which must take place in Montreal in the face of the lack of predictability, according to Mr. Lalumière.
There is a very significant risk, economic, but also reputational, while cities like Chicago, Boston, New York are open. The city of Toronto will be open from February 21, and the signs for Vancouver are also encouraging“, he listed. So Montreal is the only major North American city that cannot accommodate, that has no reopening signal.»
Mayor Plante is asking the Government of Quebec for a complete reopening plan, the list of sanitary measures that will be required during spring and summer events, and to continue to support theaters that will open at a loss, let’s say, starting tomorrow by hosting 50% of their capacity».
In 2019, nearly $665 million in economic benefits and 330,000 jobs were positively affectedby business tourism in Montreal, indicated the office of the mayor in a press release following the press conference.
However, in the last week, three congresses have announced that they intend to cancel their event scheduled between next May and July, representing 12,500 room nights and $7.5 million in economic benefits“, can we read in the press release.
In addition to the reopening of performance halls, which is due to take place on Monday, the reopening of gyms and the resumption of amateur sports for adults on February 14 are the only other reductions announced so far in Quebec.
Ontario announced a deconfinement plan full as of January 20. In particular, it provides for the lifting of traffic limits in indoor public places and limits on the size of outdoor gatherings in mid-March.
Invited to react, the Ministry of Health and Social Services had not responded to questions from Radio-Canada at the time of publishing this text.