Quebec Premier François Legault said he will meet with public health officials Monday night to discuss whether the province’s vaccine passport system should remain in use.
Speaking to reporters in Longueuil, Que., Legault said Health Minister Christian Dubé plans to “get rid of the pass as soon as we get the OK from public health.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Monday the vaccine passport system in his province will be lifted on March 1. Alberta and Saskatchewan have already ended proof of vaccination requirements, while the Manitoba government also plans to lift its vaccine passport requirement in March.
Legault said he still needs approval from public health officials before loosening the requirement to show proof of vaccination.
“We want to remove most of the measures, but we have to be careful because of the hospital situation,” he said. He added that continued relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions will give those who oppose the measures less to protest about.
Benoit Barbeau, a biology professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal who specializes in virology, said he thinks the vaccine passport system remains justifiable, but that it may be time to remove it in a matter of weeks.
“There’s still room for the use of the vaccine passport now, but as we can see a continuous reduction in the number of hospitalizations, eventually, it will need to be removed,” he said.
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While vaccine passports were initially intended to encourage people to get vaccinated and prevent transmission of the virus, he said the main reason to keep them in place now is to protect unvaccinated people, who are at higher risk of hospitalization, from being exposed to the virus in places like gyms and bars at a time when hospitalization rates remain high.
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Due to waning immunity from the vaccine, those with two doses — the number required under Quebec’s vaccine passport system — are less protected against infection than they were when the system was introduced in September.
But Barbeau said he doesn’t think it makes sense to expand the vaccine passport to require three doses of vaccine, as the additional protection offered by the third dose will likely have worn off by the time the next wave of the novel coronavirus arrives in Quebec.
Earlier on Monday, Quebec reported 17 more deaths linked to the novel coronavirus and a rise of 14 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The Health Department said 2,095 patients were in hospital with the disease, after 107 people were admitted in the previous 24 hours and 93 were discharged.
Officials said the number of people in intensive care declined by four, to 136.
Gyms and spas were allowed to reopen at half capacity across Quebec Monday, after they were closed in December to reduce transmission of the Omicron variant of the virus.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
