As the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets among younger people, will grandparents be able to see their grandchildren over the holidays? Experts in epidemiology say yes. Associations of doctors stationed in emergency rooms in the province are more worried about the impact of large gatherings on an already saturated network.
André Veillette, professor of medicine and director of the Molecular Oncology Research Unit at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute, makes the following recommendations for Safe Holidays: that guests be fully vaccinated, that those with symptoms ” stay at home ”, that rapid tests are used, that those 70 and over“ hurry ”to get their third dose. And, of course, don’t forget to ventilate the rooms.
By taking all these precautions, “the risk is not zero, but it is still quite low,” he says.
“If everyone is fully vaccinated, if children, even if they are not vaccinated, do not have glanders, the rapid tests are negative and they are done correctly, the likelihood of catching COVID is not very big. ”
The pediatrician, microbiologist-infectious disease specialist Caroline Quach-Thanh, from CHU Sainte-Justine, goes further: “We cannot ask grandparents to live a second Christmas without their grandchildren,” she says.
“There is still a need for reconciliation that is there and there is a way to do it in a relatively safe way,” she says. I’m not saying that we are capable of making a party at 50 in the basement as we did before. We can meet fewer people, but I think grandchildren should be able to see their grandparents. ”
The DD Quach-Thanh also stresses the importance of administering a third dose to those aged 70 and over and of distributing rapid tests.
What we hope is that the grandparents will have their third dose before Christmas, and that, moreover, if we have access to rapid tests, that we will be able to test the children before meetings between young and old. It still adds a layer of protection.
Caroline Quach-Thanh, pediatrician, microbiologist-infectious disease specialist
Roxane Borgès Da Silva, professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal, also believes that there is a way to organize safe parties between grandparents and their grandchildren. She also urges Quebec to offer a third dose to those 50 and over, as recommended “strongly” by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, as well as to health personnel.
“Why put health workers who will be at the front lines at risk during the holidays?” She asks.
Pediatrician at CHU Sainte-Justine, the Dr Olivier Drouin, for his part, advises parents to have their children vaccinated as soon as possible.
“Even though the effectiveness of the first dose is not perfect, I think the best way to put the odds on our side is to have children aged 5 to 11 vaccinated before they see their grandparents, he explains. It is still doable before the holiday season. Antibody production begins almost as soon as the vaccine is administered. If one wonders whether it is better for the child to be vaccinated a week before Christmas or not, it is clearly better for a child to be vaccinated a week before Christmas. ”
An overloaded system
However, all of these precautions are unlikely to prevent an upsurge in hospitalizations after the holidays. The projections of the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ), published last week, indeed indicate that in most scenarios, even those where Quebecers respect health standards and that the vaccination of children is going well, we will see a certain increase in hospitalizations in January.
This is why the two main associations of doctors working in emergencies fear that if too large gatherings are held during the holidays, the pressure on the already overloaded hospital system will be considerable.
“It’s already very busy in emergencies now, notes Dr Gilbert Boucher, President of the Association of Specialists in Emergency Medicine of Quebec. And traditionally, we know that the holiday season is always more difficult. ”
“The network is already saturated”, adds the president of the Association of emergency physicians of Quebec, the DD Judy Morris.
Hospital floors are full. And we do not yet have all the necessary staff. […] We don’t want to be alarmist, but if we add more cases of COVID, it won’t be nice.
The DD Judy Morris, President of the Quebec Association of Emergency Physicians
Quebec must unveil its plan for the holiday season this week.
Between 10 and 15% of hospital beds in Greater Montreal are currently closed due to lack of staff. Each year during the holidays, hospitals must reduce the pace of their operations to accommodate workers’ leave.
The increase in the number of COVID-19 cases currently affects mainly young people, and is not translating into a massive influx of emergency patients or hospitalizations. “But we start to see again [des cas] who come to the emergency room. There are still unvaccinated people. What is worrying about parties Christmas is that young people will rub shoulders with older patients and the risk of infection will be there, ”says DD Morris.
“The more we increase the number of cases, the more we increase the chances of having sicker patients”, summarizes the Dr Boucher, who pleads for the population to continue to respect health measures. If large gatherings were allowed during the holidays, it wouldn’t be surprising “for emergency room occupancy rates to explode after Christmas,” he believes.
Every measure that is removed decreases protection against COVID and increases cases.
The Dr Gilbert Boucher, President of the Association of Specialists in Emergency Medicine of Quebec
Already, more emergency workers are required to take time off to care for their children who contract COVID-19, says Dr.r Butcher.
While waiting for Quebec’s directives on holiday gatherings, several hospitals in Greater Montreal have canceled their face-to-face Christmas party, notes Dr Butcher, “because the risk of infection is too great”.
The DD Morris adds that healthcare workers, even if they are vaccinated, also receive positive diagnoses of COVID-19, infected by their children or in the workplace. These workers are mostly very little sick, “but they must be absent for 10 days from work to not contaminate anyone,” says the DD Morris. Absences that weigh heavily on teams already overloaded, notes the doctor.
For the DD Morris, Quebec urgently authorizes the administration of a third dose to healthcare workers and prioritizes them.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization on Friday recommended authorizing a third dose for all Canadians 18 years of age and older. For now in Quebec, only those 70 and over can receive a third dose six months after their last. Immunosuppressed people, those residing in CHSLDs and private seniors’ residences, as well as those who have received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are also eligible.
Quebec has asked the Quebec Committee on Immunization for an opinion on the third doses.
The Minister of Health will take stock of the vaccination campaign on Tuesday and there will be talk of planning for a booster dose to certain segments of the population, according to our information. “We should prioritize front-line staff and in CHSLDs. Because we are short of staff. Losing a worker for 10 days has a big impact ”, pleads the DD Morris.
With the collaboration of Fanny Lévesque
The Omicron variant is unlikely to circulate in Quebec
According to a survey carried out by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec, the Omicron variant does not seem to be circulating in Quebec for the moment. All samples that tested positive for COVID-19 as of November 30 were screened for analysis, when the sample’s viral load was large enough. Result: of the 1174 positive samples screened, 894 were screened. Of this number, no Omicron variant was detected. To date, only one case of the Omicron variant has been confirmed in Quebec. This is a traveler returning from Nigeria and residing in Quebec.
Suzanne Colpron, Press