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Quebec’s decision to start reopening elementary schools, daycares and businesses in the coming weeks includes a warning: if the COVID-19 situation slips out of control, the province will backtrack.

Steering Quebec slowly but surely into the post-crisis stage after seven weeks of restrictions, Premier François Legault said Monday he would not be acting if he didn’t have the green light from the director of public health, Horacio Arruda.

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“The premier knows we will be monitoring,” Arruda said glancing at Legault during the briefing. “If the conditions are not right, we will reverse course; if the population does not maintain social distancing, we will lose everything and will have to confine again intensively which would be really too bad in my mind.”

Arruda conceded the nice spring weather will make enforcing restrictions more difficult.

“I know it’s tough,” he said. “But it’s not time to start hugging, either.”