Quebec imposing nightly curfew across the province for 4 weeks

Quebec is imposing a provincewide overnight curfew in an effort to curb the spread of surging COVID-19 infections.

Premier Francois Legault announced that the curfew will go into effect on Jan. 9 and will last for four weeks, until Feb. 8.

The curfew will be begin nightly at 8 p.m., and stay in effect until 5 a.m. each morning.

Under the new restrictions anyone who found on the street after 8 p.m. without a good reason will be subject to a $1,000 to $6,000 fine.

All non-essential businesses in the province will remain closed until at least the end of the four week curfew.

Quebec shut down all non-essential businesses as of Christmas and the initial shutdown was to remain in place until at least Jan. 11.

Legault also announced that primary schools will still open as scheduled on Jan. 11 while high schools students will return to in-person learning the week after, on Jan. 18.

Quebec becomes the first province in Canada to impose a curfew as a measure to slow the spread of COVID-19. A number of other jurisdictions around the globe have put them in place during the pandemic. This includes Australia, Paris, New York State, and Ohio.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently said that he planned to sit down with Legault to discuss the next steps when it comes to his province potentially enforcing an overnight curfew in its latest attempt to curve the spread of COVID-19.

Ford said he wants to see where COVID-19 cases go in the next little while before implementing something similar for Ontario.

Quebec reported 2,641 new cases of COVID-19 and 47 deaths on Wednesday. According to the latest provincial numbers, the province is dealing with 1,393 hospitalizations and 202 patients currently in the ICU.

The province says it administered 6,221 doses of vaccine Tuesday, for a total of 38,984.

Quebec has reported 217,999 COVID-19 infections  and 8,488 deaths linked to the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.

With files from the Canadian Press.