Residents in Quebec's COVID-19 hot spots caught off guard by new restrictions

It only took three weeks for restaurant dining roomsin the Quebec City and Chaudire-Appalaches regions toclosedown once again.

On Wednesday,Premier Franois Legault gave restaurant owners a little morethan 24 hours to shut down, and hopes that a busy Easter weekend would provide a lifeline to businesses that have been battered by the pandemic were dashed.

"We have tens of thousands of dollars of product that havebeen ordered in the past couple weeks since we've been open," said Charles Lacroix, owner of one of theBlaxton pub and grill locations in Quebec City.

"They didn't even give us until the weekend to help usempty a little bit of the inventory and recuperate some of the money that we invested."

The growing spread of coronavirus variants is what hasprompted the Legaultgovernment to upgradethe Quebec City, Chaudires-Appalaches, Outaouais and Lower Saint-Lawrence regions from orange to red zones. It's also put in placestricter measures in three cities: Quebec City, Lvis and Gatineau.

In addition to restaurant dining rooms shutting down, schools, gyms, theatres, hairdressers and other non-essential businesses will be closed until April 12. Places of worship will remain open, but they will only beallowedto welcome a maximum of 25 people.

"This may be the worst time," said Franois Meunier, who is the vice-president of public and government affairs at the Association Restauration Qubec (ARQ).

"Easter weekend, especially in these circumstances, there was interest in the population... to go restaurantswhich is allowed in an orange zone. All of it just went up in smoke."

Thepremier said the newly closed restaurants would be eligible to receivefinancial assistance from the province.

All signs pointed to a spike in cases

With schools closing, parents in Quebec City, Lvis and Gatineau are also scrambling to make child-care plans or bracing for the fact that they don't have one.

For Caroline Paquette, a Gatineau resident, that means juggling work from home whilehelping her three childrenwith online learning.

"That's what we're trying to plan out, how we'll be managing everything, who's going tobe doing what class with what kid at what time," she said.

Theannouncement may have caught a lot of people by surprise, but several public health experts say it was clearthe epidemiological situation in Quebec was getting worse, and something needed to be done quickly.

"All the models were predicting if we did not increase our safety measures, the growth would be exponential, and that's what's happeningbecause of the variant," saidDr. Ccile Tremblay, a microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at the CHUM.

"Not only did we notincrease safety, but we decreased them."

On Wednesday, the premier saidhe was surprised the most noticeable spike in cases occurred outside the Montreal region, where restrictions were lifted less than a week ago. But he warned another increase in cases may lead to them being put back in place.

In recent days, several experts and groups, including the Collge des mdecins du Qubec and the Quebec order of nurses, had called onthe government to tighten the rules.

Legaultsaid he heard their concerns, while also saying his government's recent decision is a targeted one that aims to lower the spread in places where it is most worrisome.

"We put theMauricie-et-Centre-du-Qubecand the Eastern Townships inorange at the same time as Quebec City. Everything is going well in the Eastern Townships, but it's not going well in Quebec City," Legault said.

"So when they are asking us to take a step back, did they want us to step back everywhere? I think we need to have facts [before acting]. That's what we did."

Expert worries decision to put 3 cities on hold not enough

3 years ago

Duration 2:06

Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Ccile Tremblay says the problem in Quebec City, Lvis and Gatineau was predictable, and she worries it will spread to other regions as well.