Quebec decision on easing restrictions in some regions has some experts concerned.

In these regions, gyms and show venues will be allowed to reopen, and houses of worship will be able to take in as many as 100 people at a time. The government is also dropping the requirement that all primary school students must wear a medical grade mask, while the nightly curfew will be extended to 9:30 p.m. from 8 p.m in those regions.

Legault’s announcement came a day after Health Minister Christian Dubé and Public Health Director Horacio Arruda held a news conference of their own, during which they warned Quebecers about the growing spread of coronavirus variants.

Prativa Baral, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the province is squandering a golden opportunity to deal a crushing blow to the virus. According to Baral, the government should focus on its inoculation campaign while limiting contacts as much as possible, in an effort to keep the spread of variants under control.

„At this point, it’s more of a virus-versus-vaccine race, and we really want to make sure that we’re pushing the vaccine segment to win, as opposed [to] the variant segment,” she said.

Dr. Cécile Tremblay, a microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal said the March break puts an unknown into the equation.

„We know that people from Montreal travel to other regions, and we won’t know the result of that until two weeks [later],” she said.