Public health is concerned about growth of cases of COVID among young people [VIDEO]

In point of press in Longueuil, on Friday, the director of public health, Horacio Arruda, said that the Quebec is currently living “a pivotal period” in the fight against the sars coronavirus.

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July 3, 2020 14h09

Updated at 16h42

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Public health is concerned about growth of cases of COVID among young people [VIDEO]

Pierre Saint-Arnaud

The Canadian Press

LONGUEUIL — The public health authorities are worried about young people represent an increasing proportion of new cases of COVID-19.

The director of public health in the Montérégie, dr. Julie Loslier, has shared his concerns with his boss, dr. Horacio Arruda, Friday, while the latter was on his provincial tour.

“There has been a decline in the average age of our case and of certain phenomena, situations where there have been cases in younger people who have generated a very large number of contacts because there have been social situations without social distancing”, she revealed.

This recovery of socialization reckless seems to be fairly widespread, ” she says.

“One of the things that we noticed in the Montérégie region, and it was true in the other regions, is that the number of contacts of each case has increased. It is seen that people respect less the measures of distancing.”

And one of the signs of this carelessness is revealed in another statistic, ” added dr. Loslier: “It has been seen in recent weeks an increase in our rates of sexually transmitted infections”, index clear lack of detachment if he is.

The mask: “make it cool”

Dr. Arruda has confirmed these claims while taking care to emphasise the extent to which young people had been exemplary during the containment full.

“I want to congratulate them”, he said going into the game. Noting the effect of the campaigns conducted by influencers, celebrities and models of all kinds, the director of public health said believe that”he’ll have to return to this kind of approach with them so that they become aware”.

“They were locked in. Young people need to socialize, This is important; the containment has had perverse effects”, he acknowledged in the same breath. He stressed that young people “are less achieved and, if they are sick, they will do less of complications”, which probably explains, in part, a certain recklessness, but he recalled that they could also become transmitters of the COVID-19 to the adults around them.

While recognizing that approaches to enforcement with young people can provide the opposite effect to that intended, he said, want to “appeal to their sense of civic and social. It is necessary to create a social climate, to a standard where it will become part of the label.”

“We are going to try to make it cool for young people to wear a mask,” said dr. Arruda.

Prepare for the second wave

While the deaths and the numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19 remain rather low for the past few weeks, the public health is already preparing for a possible second wave of contamination, but Horacio Arruda insisted that the virus is still present.

Despite a decrease in the number, he reported a new outbreak in the Laurentians, while specifying that it was well-controlled.

“We have the responsibility to prepare us (a second wave)”, he added, noting that his team was working actively to do this for a few weeks.

The health authorities now know better the epidemiological characteristics of the virus, including the fact that asymptomatic carriers can transmit it while the children are small transmitters and usually have few symptoms.

The lessons learned during the first wave of COVID-19, which is not yet complete, will be useful when the time comes to face the second wave, said Mr. Arruda.

Curiously, he remains confident enough of the virus to express a certain degree of seasonality, and this, even if it is in exponential rise in the southern United States. At the same time, he admits that this virus has a lot of surprises and has not finished to amaze the medical community. In addition, it is hoped that all prevention measures – hand washing, distancing and physical port of the mask may have a side effect benefit: slow down the progression of influenza and other respiratory viruses in the fall.

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The point on the COVID-19 in Quebec : Dr. Horacio Arruda, Montérégie – 3 July 2020

CPAC

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