Quebec officials: COVID-19 boosters should become "one of our habits"

Quebec officials: COVID-19 booster shots should become "one of our habits"

Quebec’s health minister says getting COVID-19 booster shots should become “one of our habits.”

During a Thursday morning COVID-19 press conference, Christian Dubé said in French that getting boosted against coronavirus should become a way to “better live with the virus.”

The minister says the government currently doesn’t have any plans to implement new restrictions but reminds the public they need to “remain vigilant” against the virus.

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“The situation is under control for the moment and our goal is to protect the most vulnerable,” said Dubé.

Dubé, alongside Quebec’s Director of Public Health Dr. Luc Boileau, said the province has entered the seventh wave of COVID-19 and that the best way to combat the virus is to get vaccinated and boosted.

“Everyone benefits from booster shots,” says Boileau in French. “People are 60 [years old] plus and got their initial booster in December, January, and February? Now is the time to get another booster.”

Boileau says additional shots helps to “limit the risk of serious infection” from COVID and says “it’s obvious” that vaccines work.

At the end of June, Canada’s vaccine advisory board recommended booster shots this fall for all citizens, in preparation for possible future waves of COVID-19 across the country.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) offered new guidance, saying provinces should offer booster shots to people who are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, regardless of the number of doses previously received.

“NACI recommends that all other individuals 12 to 64 years of age may be offered a fall COVID-19 booster dose,” says the board, regardless of the number of previous shots.

NACI is an external advisory body that provides the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) with “independent, ongoing, and timely medical, scientific, and public health advice.”

The board continues to recommend boosters to adults in Indigenous, racialized, and marginalized communities across Canada, specifically where infection can have “disproportionate consequences.”

NACI says that while cases, deaths, and hospitalizations are declining in Canada, the “likelihood, timing, and severity of a future wave of COVID-19 is uncertain.”

NACI says it is possible that “consistent with other respiratory viruses, incidence of COVID-19 will increase in the later fall and winter seasons thus posing a risk for individuals/communities and increasing pressure on health systems.”