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I agree with the people writing in April that the Québec government has been quite open in dealing with the particular challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic there, being proactive in many respects. Mounting barriers to traffic between different administrative regions was a good idea. If the pandemic has become worse in Québec than elsewhere, this is largely because of factors either beyond the control of anyone or because of factors with wholly unanticipated consequences.The French-language article at VoyageVoyage.ca, “Pourquoi le Québec est-il autant touché par les cas de COVID-19?” by Marie-Ève Laforte does a good job of listing these. I shall summarize below.A spring break timed for the end of February, earlier than elsewhere in Canada, was perfectly timed to also catch with the long period of silent spread before mid-March, with almost a million people leaving for sun destinations and the United States.Québec has very close ties with France, with 1% of its population being made up of French immigrants and with regular traffic—including extensive tourism—between the two. Since France had been having undetected spread since December 2019, this created new factors.Québec also has very close ties with New York State, Montréal being somewhat closer than Toronto to New York City. This state, too, did see substantial early spread.The Québec government also took measures which might have expanded the casualty levels relative to other provinces, including the inclusion of people suspected to be COVID-19-positive without tests and a testing level higher per capita than that of most of its neighbouring provinces,This said, Québec does have a severe epidemic. The below chart from this National Post article reveals that the urban agglomeration of Montreal—not including the various suburbs—has as many case of COVID-19 as all of Ontario despite having only a seventh the population.The measures of Québec might have limited the spread, but still, things have spread disastrously. The region of Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine, with just over 90 thousand people, has 174 cases; the adjoining province of New Brunswick, with 747 thousand people, has 120 cases.Things are particularly bad in greater Montréal. As Tracey Lindeman reported in The Guardian, in “Why are so many people getting sick and dying in Montreal from Covid-19?”, systemic inequalities of income and opportunity and discrimination have let the virus take firm home.First, there are the old. A horrific exposé in the Montreal Gazette revealed that a local nursing home – known by its French initials as a CHSLD – had concealed the deaths of 31 seniors. Many of them seemed to have died after most staff abandoned the facility. Some of the seniors found alive hadn’t had water, food or a diaper change in days.Provincial data shows about 82% of the dead lived in seniors’ residences – most of them public. Of the total 2,003 dead in Montreal, 74% of them were over 80; 97% of them were over 60.[. . .]The other part of Montreal’s Covid-19 story can be summed up by the case of Marcelin François, a 40-year-old Haitian asylum seeker who died in his wife’s arms inside their Montreal apartment in mid-April.During the week, François worked in a textile factory. On Saturdays and Sundays, he worked as an orderly inside whichever CHSLD his temp agency dispatched him to that week.He lived with his family in Montreal North, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in all of Canada. It is a popular destination for asylum seekers – many of whom crossed the US–Canada border on foot shortly after American president Donald Trump took office. Half of the neighbourhood’s residents are members of a visible minority, and 42% are immigrants.[. . .]Other areas of Montreal badly hit by Covid-19 share similar traits with Montreal North: low-income, large immigrant communities, many people of colour, poor quality housing. Montreal’s Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations is demanding the federal and provincial governments collect data on the race and income level of Covid victims.In light of not just the relative severity of COVID-19 across the entire province of Québec but its particular virulence in Montréal, I question the plans of the Legault government to start reopening the province starting at the end of May. As Jonathan Montpetit reported at CBC, one new model suggests that absent other measures like contact tracing, daily deaths in Greater Montréal—including the suburbs—would surge to unmanageable levels by summer.iPolitics.ca is not wrong in suggesting that a Legault government insensitive to the particular needs of Greater Montréal at this time is not demonstrating the best leadership. Backing down from the plans to reopen the province is essential.