Quebec should plan mass campaign to give out COVID-19 booster shots: vaccine committee

The province's immunization committee said the government should start planning to give out second boosters of the COVID-19 vaccine to everyone in a few months.

Quebec’s immunization committee is suggesting the government start preparing a mass COVID-19 vaccine fourth-dose campaign for the general population that would be launched in the fall.

Quebecers most vulnerable to serious consequences from the disease — seniors over 80, immunocompromised people and residents of long-term care homes — can start receiving a fourth dose of vaccine next week, health officials said Wednesday. The same day, the immunization committee said the government should start planning to give second boosters out to everyone in a few months.

In a written opinion released Thursday, the Comité sur l’immunisation du Québec recommended the government implement “a new vaccine strategy aimed at periodically boosting immunity against COVID-19 while also allowing for the ability to react to a possible emergence of a new variant of concern.”

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A mass second-booster campaign, the committee suggested, could take place in September or October and target “either all persons authorized to receive vaccines against COVID-19, or those usually targeted by the seasonal influenza vaccination program.”

Currently, only 52 per cent of the population aged five and older have received a third dose of vaccine, according to provincial health data.

The committee released an analysis of hospitalizations and deaths that occurred between January and mid-March indicating that people 80 and older were almost 200 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those under 60, and 16 times more likely to be hospitalized. Some 95 per cent of those who died in hospital were 60 and older, the study said.

Among all age groups, people with chronic illnesses were seven times more likely to be hospitalized than those without them, and 95 per cent of those who died had at least one chronic condition.