Doctors say lowering age cutoff for AstraZeneca vaccine makes sense as cases surge timescolonist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timescolonist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Jacob Serebrin
MONTREAL Health experts in Quebec are criticizing the provincial government for what they say is a confusing vaccine rollout for people with chronic conditions.
Holly Witteman, a professor at Universite Laval’s faculty of medicine, said Wednesday the appointment-booking process for people at high risk of serious complications from COVID-19 is “completely opaque.” Adding to the confusion, she said, is mixed messaging from the province.
“It just demonstrates a lack of caring and a lack of respect for people who have been living at risk for over a year now,” she said in an interview.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Christian Dube said people with certain serious medical conditions would be able to make vaccine appointments online. Later that day, the province’s Health Department issued a news release saying those people who are not hospitalized would be contacted by their medical providers to be vaccinated.
Legault was joined for Tuesday s update by Health Minister Christian Dube and Health Director Horacio Arruda. They said the goal of having all Quebec adults vaccinated by June 24 is still in place, but restrictions will likely remain for the foreseeable future, especially if the virus continues to spread among young people. Despite the high vaccine coverage so far among older people, that doesn t mean we re going to open everything, said Legault. The timeline has been pushed back by the new, troubling infection rate among the young, he said. We thought that we could go back to something more normal once older people were vaccinated, he said.
MONTREAL The third wave in Quebec continues as cases increased yet again on Saturday, with 1,754 new COVID-19 infections. There are now 12,371 known active cases in the province, after 1,269 people were reportedly virus-free on Saturday. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 324,848 people have caught the virus, of which 301,740 have recovered. The average increase in cases in now 1,413 per day. The province also reported 13 more people have died from the virus, for a total of 10,737. Two deaths were removed from that tally after an investigation found them not to be associated with the coronavirus. Of those 13 deaths, two occurred in the last 24 hours, eight between April 3 to 8, and one at an unknown date.
Last Updated: Thursday, April 8, 2021 17:02
Starting today, Quebecers aged 55 and over were able to receive the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine at walk-in clinics across the province and the population responded well to the new initiative.
According to a report from CBC News, many Quebecers across the province were waiting in line and eager to get their vaccine on Thursday morning.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé, who toured the vaccination site at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, said in a tweet that he got a first hand account of how successful the first day of walk-in vaccinations was.
He also thanked Quebecers for responding to the call.