Lessons from Quebec City’s gym outbreak, one of Canada’s largest COVID-19 superspreading events – CBC

Government must align policies with the science as it contends with more transmissible variants, experts say

Apr 14, 2021

We still don’t know exactly how it started — a runner on a treadmill, or perhaps someone lifting weights — but an outbreak at a gym in Quebec City has become one of the largest recorded COVID-19 superspreading events in Canada.

The Méga Fitness Gym, tucked behind a busy highway in an industrial section of the provincial capital, became a major source of contagion for the B117 variant first identified in the United Kingdom, which now accounts for 70 per cent of all cases in Quebec City.

The gym was shut down March 31 as the city was once again put under lockdown. To date, there have been 222 people infected at the gym, and another 356 related cases involving outbreaks at 49 workplaces. A 40-year-old man who trained at the gym has died.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/superspreading-event-canada-megagym-quebec-1.5985744