Quebec vaccine plan for young children to involve schools, vaccination centres, minister says
CBC
With Health Canada finally approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for young children, the Quebec government says it's putting the final touches on its rollout plan.
On Friday, Health Canada gave the green light to the the pharmaceutical company's vaccine, also known as Cominarty, for children aged five to 11, saying it's more than 90 per cent effective against COVID-19 in children.
With that announcement, 600,000 children in Quebec become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Health Minister Christian Dubé.
Dubé said the province's complete vaccination plan will be unveiled some time next week. But he did offer some details on Friday.
Dubé says the province wants to give each child one dose of the vaccine by Christmas — reiterating what was said earlier this month by Daniel Paré, the man overseeing the province's COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
"That would be a very nice Christmas gift," Dubé said during a news conference.
Dubé said he expects the vaccines to be administered both in schools and in vaccination centres. The goal is to make it easy for parents to be with their children as they're getting their shots.
"We're going to keep those vaccination centres open until Christmas just to make sure we allow the parents to accompany their kids."
Dubé also said he does not expect children to have to abide by vaccination passport rules once the campaign is in full swing.
More than 13 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the province.
The minister said he's not sure what the target vaccination rate will be for children between the ages of five and 11, saying he's hoping it will be as high as possible. He said he's hoping the vaccination campaign for that younger children will be as successful as the one for 12- to 17-year-olds.
According to the latest provincial data, 95 per cent of people in that age group have received two vaccine doses — the highest rate of any age group.
This story will be updated
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