Montreal and Quebec City under red alert, closing bars and restaurants

MONTREAL (CityNews) – Montreal, Quebec City, and Chaudière-Appalaches have been moved to the province’s highest alert level – red – following a record single-day high in COVID-19 cases on the weekend.

Premier François Legault said “the situation has become critical” during a press conference Monday afternoon.

“The number of cases is rising. If we don’t want our hospitals to be submerged and if we want to limit the number of deaths, we must act strongly right now.”

New measures will be put in effect as of midnight Wednesday Oct. 1, and will remain until Oct. 28.

“We will give ourselves these four weeks to try and stop the second wave,” said Legault.

Private gatherings are now prohibited, with a few exceptions. Inside a private home, you cannot have a visitor with a different address.

However, you can have a visitor if you live alone, if you need a caregiver or someone offering social services like a babysitter, if there’s already planned construction work inside your home. In these cases, only one person can be in the home at a time.

Bars, taverns, and restaurants must close, except for delivery and take-out. Movie theatres, casinos, libraries, museums, show and concert halls are all closed for 28 days.

“We are waiting until Wednesday night to change the alert level to allow bars and restaurants the minimum amount of time to adjust to the new measures,” explained Legault.

WATCH: Premier François Legault, Health Minister Christian Dubé, and Director of public health Horacio Arruda to provide a COVID-19 update.

Gatherings in a public place cultural or funerals have a 25-person maximum and a registry of who attended must be kept. Anyone attending a protest must wear a mask.

For CHSLDs and private long-term care facilities, only visitors for end-of-life reasons and caregivers will be allowed, with a one-person-at-a-time rule and a maximum of two people per day per CHSLD resident.

Stores, boutiques, hair salons can remain open in red zones.

Schools will also remain open.

Interregional travel is not recommended from red zones to green, yellow, and orange zones, except for essential travel, workers, transport of merchandise, or for shared-custody agreements.

WATCH: Why Montreal is in ‘red’ alert