When will the three doses of vaccine be compulsory to have a valid passport?
At a press conference on Thursday, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, clearly announced his intention to make the third dose compulsory to obtain a vaccination passport. “I want to be clear: we are going to expand the vaccine passport to three doses,” said the minister. This change will come into effect “over the next few months”. “We have not yet determined the date, because we cannot ask people to meet a requirement if we have not given them the chance to be vaccinated,” added the Minister. This chance should arise “during the months of January and February,” he said. “I don’t want people to worry about the third dose being imposed for the passport until everyone has had time to get the vaccine.” Discussions on this subject are taking place with the public health department to determine when this requirement will come into effect, said Mr. Dubé.
Around the world, the definition of a “adequately vaccinated” person is beginning to be combined with the third dose. In France, the validity of the “activity health pass” for adults will be linked to the third dose on January 15. In Canada, the head of public health, Theresa Tam, indicated that this definition would be reviewed when the vaccination campaign was more advanced. In the United States, where the booster campaign (booster) has been running since the fall, the White House said the country is not currently considering requiring visitors to cross its borders to receive a third dose.
Will an infection that occurs after two doses be considered a “third dose” for the purposes of the vaccination passport?
This is the moment when science meets bureaucracy … From a scientific point of view, an infection constitutes a “stimulation” of the immune system, like a dose of vaccine. Studies last year showed that people who had COVID-19 before being vaccinated were as well protected after a single dose as those who received two doses of the vaccine without having had the disease. This is why in Quebec (as in France for that matter), a person is considered to be adequately protected if the first dose is received 21 days after having had COVID-19. Those who wish can still receive a second dose.
What if the infection occurs after the first dose? It also certainly counts as a “stimulation” and provides excellent immune protection. But in the absence of detailed data (and also to simplify the administrative process), the official recommendation is to receive the second dose. Thus, the Quebec vaccine passport only takes into account infections that occurred before the first dose.
So, will an infection occurring after two doses of vaccine be recognized for the “three-dose” vaccination passport? Probably not. But this is one of the questions the Ministry of Health will need to answer before changing the requirements for the vaccination passport.
I had COVID-19 after my second dose of the vaccine. How long do I have to wait before I receive my third dose?
Here again, science and bureaucracy collide. According to the latest opinion published by the Committee on Immunization of Quebec (CIQ), “the vaccination of people already infected increases the protection acquired by the infection, but the benefit in absolute terms is modest”. “It therefore appears that a booster dose in a person who has already received two doses of vaccine and who has had a confirmed infection is of little use,” writes the CIQ.
Not very useful for science, but unavoidable for the bureaucracy, it seems. This is why the CIQ does not prohibit administering a third dose to people who request it. However, he suggests waiting three months after infection before receiving this dose, or at least eight weeks, since the immune system, already full of antibodies after overcoming an infection, does not need to be stimulated unnecessarily. before a long time.
The Ministry of Health intends to put online a “self-declaration platform”, where to register a positive rapid test result. What will this approach be used for?
Many readers wonder whether they should put the fact that they have tested positive on a rapid test “somewhere”. Or, they’re worried that they couldn’t get tested because of the restrictions. On Thursday, Minister Christian Dubé indicated that his ministry would launch “in the coming weeks” a “self-declaration platform”. “It will allow you to record the result of a positive test yourself,” said the minister. The compilation of the data collected by this platform with those of the PCR screening tests “should give us a good indicator” of the number of cases in progress, indicated Mr. Dubé. But according to the little information provided by the Ministry of Health so far, this approach will mainly be used to monitor the progress of the pandemic – it is not necessarily intended to “officially” register the infection in the epidemic. patient file, and even less to have an impact on the validity of his vaccination passport. In short, regardless of whether a virus infection is confirmed by a test or declared to Public Health, it will probably be necessary to receive a third dose to keep his vaccination passport up to date.