Quebec Reports 745 New Cases of COVID-19, to Announce Child Vaccination Plans Next Week | The Canadian News

Quebec reported 745 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and two additional deaths, bringing the death toll in the province to 11,552.

Of the new cases, 419 are among people who are not vaccinated or who withdrew within two weeks of a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Over the past seven days, Quebec has had an average of 651 daily infections, and the number of active cases increased to 6,128.

To date, Quebec has recorded 437,549 infections and 419,869 recoveries.

Hospitalizations decreased by four in the last day, with 201 patients. Of them, 45 were in the ICU.

Quebec’s vaccination campaign continues with people 75 and older eligible to schedule appointments for a third booster dose this week.

Next week, pre-orders will open for those over 70, as well as for people who received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

To date, it is considered that 88.6% of the population aged 12 years and over is adequately vaccinated.

Quebec to start vaccinating children under 12 years of age

However, Quebec will soon begin vaccinating children between the ages of five and 11, after Health Canada approved a pediatric vaccine on Friday morning.

While Health Minister Christian Dubé told reporters in Montreal that the government would reveal the details of its plan next week, the hope is to start as soon as possible.

“It will be a very nice Christmas gift if all of our children get vaccinated before Christmas,” he said.

Dubé says that vaccinating children will allow them to return to a new normal.

“After five at 11, we will be able to lift the essentials of the measures,” he said.

However, Dubé admitted that we have to learn to live with the virus.

“I think there are some measures that should be there, I think that in public, in transport there will be some measures that will be there …”. he said.

Dubé is hopeful that parents will vaccinate their children and pointed to young people between the ages of 12 and 17 as a group to follow, citing high vaccine coverage.

He also said Quebecers only had to look at what was happening in their own backyard to see the difference vaccination can make.

In the province as a whole there are 71.3 active cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but that number increases to 156.4 per 100,000 people in regions such as the Eastern Municipalities, where the coverage of the vaccine, according to Dubé, is only a 10% lower.

Dubé said the government plans to vaccinate children in the province’s mass vaccination centers and in schools.

– With files from Olivia O’Malley of Global News and The Canadian Press