The time has finally come! During a press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister François Legault made the exciting announcement that the dining rooms of Quebec restaurants will be able to reopen starting Monday, January 31.
But, of course, there will be restrictions.
Restaurants in the province are only allowed to operate at 50% capacity and a maximum of “four people or two bubbles” are allowed to sit together per table.
The vaccine passport will also be compulsory to enter these establishments.
This new rule is similar to another announcement made at Tuesday’s press conference: indoor gatherings are allowed again from Monday, with the same limit of four people or two households.
Legault started the press conference by referencing his favorite metaphor about finding “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Good news, the Prime Minister said that we had finally “came out of the tunnel”.
According to Legault, the reason for this gradual easing of restrictions is that the government found that the measures in place were beginning to affect “the mental health of Quebecers”.
Quebec reported 272 hospital admissions and 293 discharges as of Jan. 25, for a net drop of 21 and a total of 3,278 hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients.
Since the Jan. 20 COVID-19 report, the number of hospitalizations in the province has slowly declined after a record spike in the first half of January.
The latest projections from the National Institute for Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS), released on January 20, suggest daily hospitalizations could drop to around 200 by the end of the first week of February as the total number of hospitalizations drops to around 3,000.
The cover image of this article was used for illustrative purposes only.
