Quebec's chief public health officer says if you're not from Montreal's west end, you might want to avoid going there because of the concentration of COVID-19 cases there.
On Wednesday, Montreal public health officials said 42 per cent of the confirmed cases on the island of Montreal were in the territory covered by the Centre-Ouest regional health board (CIUSSS), which takes in the western part of downtown, the Cote-des-Neiges-NDG borough, the Park Extension neighborhood, and the cities of Westmount, Cote St. Luc, Hampstead, Montreal West, Town of Mount Royal, and Outremont.
As of Thursday, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is up to 782 in Montreal, up from 603 on Wednesday.
Dr. Arruda says his office is working with Montreal public health officials to determine whether any further measures need to be taken to limit the spread in the west end.
"Try to minimize, if you're not from [the west end], to go over there, [if you're] from other regions," Dr. Arruda told reporters at the province's daily news briefing on Thursday. "If there's a need to add other [measures], in relation with transports and everything, we're going to do specific actions in the next days."
Dr. Arruda also told reporters that province-wide, the COVID-19 situation is under control — for now.
Premier François Legault says the overall number of cases in the province has risen to 1,629, up 290 from Wednesday — a slightly less steep increase than those we've seen over the last three days.
A total of eight deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in Quebec so far.