By Gordon Lambie
As the vaccination campaign picks up speed in the Eastern Townships, Campaign Director Jean Delisle is asking people outside of the target group of people 70 years and older not to jump the gun.
“People who are not in the priority group should not call, visit the website, or show up in person to be vaccinated,” Delisle said Wednesday morning. “We are sticking to the groups authorized and determined by the ministry (of health) at this point.”
The campaign director also shared that people do not need to make themselves an appointment for their second dose, reminding the public that the date and time of their second shot is set up as a part of the appointment for their first. The population is also asked to arrive only five minutes before their appointed time and wait in their car, rather than lining up, in order to maintain social distancing.
Delisle shared that there have been more than 60,000 appointments made for vaccination in the Townships so far, and compared that to the region’s population of just under 500,000 people as a sign that things are on the right track. When it comes to vaccinations that have actually taken place so far, Dr. Alain Poirier, the interim Regional Public Health Director, specified that at this point 92.3 per cent of those living in long-term care homes (CHSLDs) and 83.1 per cent those living in private seniors homes (RPAs) in the region have been vaccinated. Looking at the population as a whole, Poirier said that the CIUSSS figures show about 6.2 per cent of people in the Eastern Townships have been vaccinated so far, but he said that number is slightly lower than the reality due to a clerical error that is still in the process of being corrected.
Asked about what it would take for the Estrie region to be classified under the yellow alert level, Poirier tentatively said “time.” While he noted that several of the criteria used to determine alert levels are already in yellow for the region and the most dire is orange mainly because of a single outbreak, he stressed the fact that the most important determining factor for the alert status of a region is stability.
“Next to us Chaudiere-Appalaches, Capitale Nationale, and the Outaouais regions have seen cases increase recently when they were in better shape than us a few weeks ago,” Poirier said, calling the situation “fragile.”
With regard to those people who are opting out of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, Delisle repeated the fact that while people are within their rights to opt out of getting a vaccination, people are not allowed to pick and choose which vaccine they receive. Those who do choose to opt out after showing up for their shot receive a note indicating as much in their file so that the CIUSSS can keep track of who may be trying to cheat the system by coming back at a later date. As to what happens with the dose of vaccine that had been prepared for that individual, the campaign director said that at this point the need for doses in different situations is great enough that none of the cancellations has resulted in a wasted dose.
Wednesday saw an increase of 22 new cases of COVID-19 in the Estrie region, bringing the total number of cases so far to 11,827 and the total number of cases currently active to 157. Of those, 14 are in the La Pommeraie sector, 60 are in the Haute Yamaska, eight are in Memphremagog, four are in the Coaticook area, 22 are in Sherbrooke, eight are in the Val Saint-François, 40 are in the Des Sources region, and one is in Granit. There were no new deaths and the total number of hospitalizations remained stable, with 17 outside of intensive care and two in intensive care.
The province of Quebec recorded 703 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total number of people infected to 299,450, with 6,833 currently active. There were 13 new deaths recorded, but the total number of deaths only increased to 10,570, due to the withdrawal of one previously reported death that was not attributable to the virus. The number of hospitalizations decreased by one to 532, but the number of people in intensive care increased by 16 to 107.
Another 28,812 doses of vaccine administered on Tuesday were added to the total, meaning that 804,806 out of the 1,050,355 doses of vaccine that have been received so far have been administered.
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 variant cases in the province now sits at 541, nine of which have been in the Estrie Region. Another 2,352 presumptive cases are being tracked within the province.
