The vaccination campaign is running out of steam

The Quebec vaccination campaign is showing signs of running out of steam, with the number of doses administered daily decreasing for two weeks.

Henri Ouellette-Vezina
The Press

Pierre-Andre Normandin
The Press

A perception of low risk from the Omicron variant, combined with general exhaustion, could explain the slowdown, experts say, saying a three-dose vaccine passport could help kick-start efforts.

“The reality is that the situation has been much better for a while, and we are heading for better days. People are therefore probably wondering why they would make an effort, when in Europe, we are lifting a whole lot of measures. The most difficult wave has passed. It seems, ”explains the D^D Marie-Pascale Pomey, public policy specialist at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal (ESPUM).

She maintains that restarting vaccination will be “very difficult, especially among young people”, who are slow to come and get their third dose, probably because they feel “little concerned” about the need to protect themselves. Quebec is currently administering 70,000 doses on average per day, up from 105,000 in mid-January. To date, more than 80% of people aged 60 and over have been triple vaccinated, while barely 23% of young people aged 18 to 29 have received their third dose.

In the eyes of the specialist, “there is only the extension of the vaccine passport to three doses that will make things happen at this point”. “At some point, if we want to propel the numbers, there has to be an incentive to socialize. Everything will depend on having access to activities, especially among young people. In France, the health passport has now been at three doses since mid-January, and when they did, it propelled the vaccination effort,” she recalls.

Except that in Quebec, the Legault government does not currently intend to require three doses for the vaccine passport. ” It’s too early. We cannot put dates, because we do not know when people will have had the opportunity to obtain this third dose, ”replied the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, on Tuesday. at a press briefing. He claims that several “limitations” require some people to wait, including the “famous eight-week delay” between each dose.

The Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, nevertheless recognized shortly after that Quebec “should extend” the vaccine passport to more establishments. “It could be all businesses,” he said, speaking of “a tool that will probably stay for a long time.”

A “risky” game

For Alain Lamarre, professor and researcher specializing in immunology and virology at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS), the perception of the Omicron variant as being “far less dangerous” probably plays a big role in slowing down vaccination.

“More and more, people, and especially young people, see the urgency less, because they no longer fear complications, and tell themselves that everyone is going to have it, that we can therefore move on to something else. However, the reality is that it’s a risky game all the same, knowing that you never really know who the unlucky ticket will fall on, ”he summarizes.

If people with significant risk factors are indeed more vulnerable, “there are still people with no risk factors who end up in hospital too”.

“I understand that seeing everyone deconfine all over the world, we want to say to ourselves: it is no longer serious, COVID, and there is no longer any need to get vaccinated. But it’s much more complicated than that, ”insists the expert.

On Tuesday, François Legault again said he wanted to “reach out” to the unvaccinated. “I understand that in a society like ours, freedom is a fundamental element, but the freedom of some ends where the freedom of others begins. When a person ends up in the hospital with COVID, they take the place of another patient waiting for surgery. There is a question of solidarity. It’s not just a personal decision,” he said.

The situation in Quebec in brief

On Monday, 52,345 additional doses were administered, to which are added 1,610 vaccines given before January 31 which had not yet been counted. So far, 86.1% of Quebecers have one dose, 80.2% have two and 43% now have three doses.

The 63 new deaths reported on Tuesday bring the daily average to 50. The trend is down 28% over one week. There was a further decrease of 36 hospitalizations. To date, 2,852 patients remain hospitalized in connection with the virus, of which 218 are still in intensive care, a decrease of 5 cases. These 2,852 people hospitalized represent a drop of 13% over one week. The drop is 17% in intensive care.