The pandemic continues to make waves in Quebec despite extensive vaccination. How to explain this virulence when the overwhelming majority of Quebecers are adequately protected?
This progression is largely explained by the relaxation of health measures for some time, indicates Dr. Gaston De Serres, epidemiologist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec.
“If we removed all the measures, that there were no more measures, I can tell you that it would go up very, very quickly,” he says.
The vaccination rate should, however, limit the spread of the virus for the coming months, nuance Benoit Barbeau, specialist in virology. The vaccination coverage goes “beyond what one could imagine”, and according to him, the fourth wave is “well contained”.
Pockets of resistance
The some 750,000 people still unvaccinated in Quebec, however, threaten the health balance. Their grouping promotes the proliferation of the virus and, at the same time, the extension of the pandemic.
“Often unvaccinated people tend to stick around,” notes Dr De Serres. “There is an assortment that makes people opposed to immunization going to have a group of friends of other like-minded individuals. So when an infection enters these groups, it has a chance of spreading in these groups. “
Nunavik, for example, records alarming rates. The Inuit territory reports a rate of 1,450 active cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while the Quebec average is currently 61 per 100,000. The smallness of housing and the winter cold certainly feed the contamination, but the lower vaccination rate is there. plays for a lot, according to specialists. However, nearly 70% of the eligible population of Nunavik is adequately vaccinated.
“Nunavik is an exception”, relativizes Benoit Barbeau. As the vaccination rate in Quebec is “relatively representative” of all the sub-regions of Quebec, there are few truly uncovered communities. Nevertheless, the example of Nunavik must be considered as “a serious warning”, he warns, because the “worst case scenario is when you have too many unvaccinated people in a community”.
The chief physician of the scientific group in immunization of the INSPQ estimates that all those who refuse the vaccine will end up being infected in one way or another, with more or less serious symptoms. “By choosing to be unvaccinated, they chose to be infected. “
This text is taken from our newsletter “The Coronavirus Mail” dated November 8, 2021. To subscribe, click here.