Quebec is “not worried” despite the timid start of the vaccination campaign for toddlers, when barely 2,000 doses were administered to children aged between six months and 4 years in Quebec, an average of around 500 a day since last Monday.
Posted at 1:32 p.m.
” We are not worried. There are already at least 10,000 children who have had a vaccination or who have made appointments, ”revealed the national director of public health, the Dr Luc Boileau, at a press conference on Friday. “It will progress,” he assured at the same time.
He affirms that the government will remind regularly in the coming days “that the vaccine is available, that it is a very effective vaccine in children, and that it does not give any difficulties”. “We will strongly encourage parents who have children who are vulnerable, immunosuppressed or who were very premature to go and get the vaccination,” he said. “We just want to make sure parents are aware that it’s available. »
The Dr Boileau nevertheless recalls that many children have contracted COVID-19 in recent months. Public Health recommends that these young people – like adults for that matter – wait at least three months before the last infection before getting a dose of vaccine.
Five days after the start of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in toddlers, the mobilization seems for the moment timid. Since the beginning of the week, there have been just over 2,000 doses administered to children aged between six months and 4 years in Quebec, or an average of 500 per day. It is in Montreal that we administered the most, with nearly 600 doses.
A July 8-20 poll that the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) recently found that only 41% of parents of children aged four or younger intended to have them inoculated when vaccines were taken. would be available. Of the respondents, 40% of parents said they were not planning to have them vaccinated and 19% reported that their decision had not been made.
The main reasons given by parents for not using the vaccine were, at 23%, that they did not see the need for it because they considered that the risks of COVID-19 for the health of their child were low. . Of the rest, 20% expressed concern about possible side effects from COVID-19 vaccines and 17% said they did not believe coronavirus vaccines were effective.
Five months after the last dose
Other information should be given “soon” on the vaccination campaign that the government is preparing for this fall, for the general population.
If current vaccines work and prevent transmission, “there are new vaccines that are on the way,” noted Dr.r Boileau, in reference to the vaccines adapted to the Omicron variants that several pharmaceutical companies are developing. “We have no details on the dates that these new vaccines will arrive. It is expected that they can arrive by September, maybe a little closer to October. But will find out when they tell us, ”raised the main interested party.
In addition, Quebec is now calling for a booster dose, five months after the last injection. “What’s important here is to hear that if it’s been five months since you had a booster dose, it’s time to get a new one, because immunity drops after five or six months”, also raised the national director, before adding: “vaccination does not last forever”.
Otherwise, the seventh wave tends to “stabilize”, reiterated the Dr Boileau, even if transmission remains high at present. “There are variations from one region to another, but the overall picture remains encouraging. […] It will go down, but it won’t go down fast. »
The pressure exerted by COVID-19 on Quebec hospitals is indeed beginning to diminish. Quebec on Friday reported a drop of 46 hospitalizations and a decline in the number of absent health care workers. Sixteen additional deaths attributed to the pandemic were however deplored, as well as 1,460 new infections with the virus by PCR screening test.
With Pierre-André Normandin