Quebec still has 4.4 million doses of vaccine against COVID-19 at a time when the vaccination campaign is showing significant signs of running out of steam. While these provisions may seem astronomical, they could prove useful in the coming months.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
“The reality is that we don’t really know what will happen. Maybe we’ll have another wave eventually, and all those people who don’t want to get vaccinated right now will suddenly be running to get it. The craze can also resume if the vaccine passport increases to three doses, ”launches the Dr André Veillette, researcher at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM).
According to figures compiled by The Press, based on data from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) and Health Canada, Quebec has a reserve of approximately 4.4 million vaccines currently. Of these, more than 1.6 million doses are from Pfizer, about 695,000 from Pfizer “pediatric”, more than 2 million from Moderna and just 44,000 from AstraZeneca, which is hardly used in the province anymore. .
According to the professor and researcher specializing in immunology and virology at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS) Alain Lamarre, everything is a question of perspective. “Yes, 4.4 million is a lot. And with the obvious breathlessness of the campaign, I don’t see how we’re going to sell it at the moment. But we are not immune to a rise. We should not get caught with a possible sixth wave without being ready, ”he also judges.
No one had seen Omicron coming. And we were very happy to have the vaccines. Managing such a reserve is not easy, but it is necessary.
Alain Lamarre, immunology specialist at INRS
In Quebec, as elsewhere, the main issue behind these provisions remains the validity of longer-term vaccines, which in practice have an “expiration date”. “We will have to watch that closely, but at the same time, we know that these dates were established in a very conservative way. In reality, RNA vaccines are supposed to be good for a few years. We won’t have to get rid of it tomorrow morning,” says Mr. Veillette.
Restart the machine?
For now, the pace of the vaccination campaign is still showing strong signs of losing momentum in Quebec. On Wednesday, barely 31,770 doses were administered, to which must be added all the same 977 vaccines given before February 9 which had not yet been officially counted. Overall, 86.3% of Quebecers have one dose, 81.2% have two and 45.8% have three doses.
Thursday, the office of the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, recalled that “many Quebecers” – at least 2 million of them since the start of the fifth wave, according to public health estimates –, “have caught the COVID-19 in the holiday season and wait their 8 to 12 weeks to get their dose”.
“We certainly don’t want vaccination capacity to lose momentum, when demand could go up or even when public health directives could change at any time, as we experienced last December. We will continue to adjust,” said press secretary Marjaurie Côté-Boileau.
Speaking of a “pivotal moment in vaccination”, Quebec confirms that it has “much more offers than demand at this stage” and says it is “redeploying” resources “towards other more targeted tasks, in particular for vaccination in schools “. “People who are mobilized in vaccination centers are mostly hired via the Je contribu platform. Since the start of the vaccination operation, we have done everything to ensure that nurses are in hospitals and living environments,” concludes Ms.me Cote-Boileau.
The teacher at the Montreal School of Public Health (ESPUM) Roxane Borgès Da Silva calls on the government to “relaunch positive communication campaigns to encourage people to get their third dose”. “The key to getting out of the crisis is through broader coverage with the booster dose. Let us use our artists, our influencers, to get the message across, ”she says.