Quebec has lifted the last remaining emergency lockdown measures imposed on some of its COVID-19 hot spot regions as Newfoundland and Labrador extends restrictions in a hard-hit stretch of the province.
The decision to end the special measures in some municipalities in the Estrie, Chaudière-Appalaches, and Bas-Saint-Laurent regions comes as Quebec sees case counts continue to trend downwards.
Those areas will now return to the red alert level of the province’s pandemic system, meaning non-essential businesses can reopen and the evening curfew will be pushed back to 9:30, in step with most of southern Quebec.
The curfew is expected to be called off across all of Quebec later this week—a significant development in the province’s reopening.
Further east, however, health officials are imposing restrictions on a broader swath of northeastern Newfoundland, placing communities along the Trans-Canada Highway from Gambo to Badger under the second-highest alert level.
The new rules are taking effect immediately, and come days after the area from Lewisporte to Summerford was moved to the same alert level.
The province says there are 32 cases linked to a growing cluster of cases in the area that triggered the move to Level 4.
Elsewhere in Eastern Canada, Nova Scotia is reporting 49 new cases of COVID-19 today for a total of 894 active infections provincewide.
New Brunswick, meanwhile, has logged 15 new cases, most of them in the Fredericton area.
Some provinces, such as Ontario, aren’t reporting daily case counts today due to the Victoria Day holiday.
