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QUEBEC — The province’s director of public health is urging Montrealers and everyone else to stay out of the city’s west end, where the number of COVID-19 cases is growing.

“Try and minimize, if you’re not from that place, to go over there from other regions,” Horacio Arruda said Thursday at Premier François Legault’s daily briefing on the pandemic.

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“If we need to add other things, such as in relation to transport and everything, we’re going to do specific actions in the coming days. Perhaps not tomorrow, but we are following the situation day by day.”

Arruda made the comments as the number of confirmed cases in Montreal jumped again, from 603 Wednesday to 782 Thursday. That means about 45 per cent of the new cases in the province Thursday were in Montreal.

Arruda agreed the city has become a hot spot in the battle against the virus and might need strict controls. He did not elaborate.

“It’s clear in the Montreal region there are many, many, many new cases,” Arruda said. “It does not mean everyone is the process of dying, but we have to investigate.