Some parents are still hesitant to have their children vaccinated, even though one in five parents have no intention of doing so at all.
Yet the data has demonstrated its effectiveness for two months. Among them, there is Marie-Lise Jean, a mother of three children who are still not inoculated.
But she made up her mind last week when her 2-year-old Liam was diagnosed with dystrophy. He will soon be immunosuppressed.
Madame Jean is not the only one to have hesitated. According to a survey by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec, 5% of parents are still undecided and 20% have no intention of having their child vaccinated.
Also according to this study, the fear of side effects demotivates them.
“Millions of doses have been given to children in the United States with no side effects. We also have new data on how it protects children against the severity of the disease, explained to TVA Nouvelles the pediatric infectious disease specialist at Sainte-Justine Hospital, Fatima Kakkar.
“It felt like maybe the kids weren’t so sick from COVID. But with Omicron, everything changed,” she explains.
In Sainte-Justine, there are currently two COVID units. Never seen. Around thirty children are admitted each day.