A few days before the start of the school year face-to-face, nearly 60,000 Montreal students aged 5 to 11 have still not received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The duty learned that in 58 primary schools, the vaccination rate was less than 30% as of January 10. Among these establishments, 16 even posted a rate of 5% or less, according to a document from the Montreal Regional Public Health Directorate obtained by the newspaper.
Vaccination coverage varies greatly in the 459 elementary schools in the city, reveal data from the Montreal Public Health Department. Monday, more than one establishment in ten did not cross the threshold of 30% of vaccinated students. More than a quarter recorded a vaccination rate of between 30 and 50%. Click on the map to see where your local school is located.
“It is extremely worrying when we see how low vaccination rates are in certain neighborhoods,” says Kathleen Legault, president of the Montreal Association of School Directions. When we see rates of 25% or 30%, that’s not much. Obviously, the message of government and Public Health is not getting through some neighborhoods [comme] Saint-Léonard, Montreal-Nord and Saint-Michel. “
For example, a quarter of the students are vaccinated at the Léonard – De Vinci school, located on the edge of the Saint-Michel district. This proportion is even lower in the annex of the same establishment. In Saint-Léonard, the Lambert-Closse school has a 22% vaccination rate.
Three Orthodox Jewish establishments have even lower rates. At the Premier Mesifta School of Canada, the Beth Jacob School of Rav Hirschprung (English section) and the Belz Community School (Ducharme Campus, English section), between 1% and 3% of students obtained a first dose. These are the lowest rates in Montreal.
For the best vaccination coverage, the Jewish Popular Schools and the Peretz Schools (English section) take the top prize with 91% of students vaccinated. The table below allows you to quickly trace the immunization coverage of a school, by typing its name.
A worrying return to class
Kathleen Legault is worried about a return to class on Monday, especially in schools where the vaccination rate is low. “Are we going to have to think of additional measures to secure these environments? For example, could we make additional efforts in terms of vaccination? Could we have case management protocols that are adapted? Could we think of N95 masks [pour le personnel] because there may be more contagion? “
The president of the Alliance of professors of Montreal, Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre, deplores that the teaching staff still do not know the government’s game plan a few days before the start of the school year. Members are at risk of being isolated due to COVID-19, she argues. “He’s going to run out of people,” she said. We do not know if the government has a clear plan. We really feel in the unknown. “
Nathalie Grandvaux, director of the Laboratory for Research on the Response of the Host to Viral Infections at the CHUM, for her part believes that it is “very risky” to resume face-to-face in schools on Monday, unless the government “arrives with a contingency plan that is clear ”and that includes a strategy for rapid screening tests and class ventilation. “We must leave the opportunity to teachers who want to wear the N95 to do so and to be able to protect themselves, that’s for sure,” she thinks.
Vaccination coverage in schools must also be improved, adds Nathalie Grandvaux. “If we have schools in which we have 30% of students with a dose, as much to say that the great, great, majority are not vaccinated and this is where we risk seeing classes close anyway”, she says. This “disorganized chaos” risks damaging the mental health of young people, perhaps even more than an extra week at home, she believes.
The DD Caroline Quach-Thanh, pediatrician and microbiologist-infectious disease specialist at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center, pleads in favor of a return to class on Monday for the well-being of the children. According to her, vaccination coverage for one dose in schools is not a determining factor in the decision that Quebec must make in the short term about face-to-face. “What we see in the studies is that a dose of vaccine does not change much in the sense that it may prevent complications, such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, but it will not reduce the contagiousness, ”she explains.
To reduce transmission, children should be immunized twice. “The data that is difficult to obtain is the percentage of children who have contracted Omicron since mid-December,” continues the DD Quach-Thanh. I have the impression that there are a lot of them. Once you have had the Omicron, you are no longer at risk of catching it and since you will not catch it, you will not be contagious either. “
At the Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal, it is indicated that the schools with the lowest vaccination rates will soon be targeted in order to do “another spin”. Dr Paul Le Guerrier, coordinator of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, indicates that the operation is more complex for 5 to 11 year olds than for young people 12 years and older. “The government wants us to give the booster dose to the entire population,” he said. Of course, it is more difficult to say: “we are putting all our energy into increasing vaccination coverage for 5-11 year olds”. “
Methodology
The duty obtained vaccination coverage data from 459 primary school establishments in the City of Montreal for children aged 5 to 11 (at least one dose). They come from the “List of users” indicator of the infocentre (INSPQ) for people vaccinated in Montreal. The 13 schools with 20 children and under have been removed from the map and the table for privacy reasons.
Data was missing for six schools: Beyachad Academy, girls ‘campus, Beyachad Academy, boys’ campus, Belz Community School, Ducharme Campus, French section, Yeshiva Gedola-Merkaz Hatorah in Montreal, English section, l The Très-Saint-Sacrement School (Très-Saint-Sacrement, Knowledge Building) and the Peter Hall School Inc., Côte-Vertu Campus. The proportions cited in the article thus take into account the 453 schools for which we had information.