COVID-19 updates, Oct. 13: After flipflop, Dubé insists new vaccination deadline is firm
Forty-eight hours before the initial deadline, 22,000 Quebec health workers still aren't fully vaccinated. They now have until Nov. 15 to get their shots.
Article content
Updated throughout the day on Wednesday, Oct. 13. Questions/comments: ariga@postmedia.com
Top updates
- Canada welcomes U.S. decision to reopen land border to vaccinated Canadians
- ‘It’s been too long’ – Canadian travellers welcome news of U.S. land border reopening
- Here’s a breakdown of unvaccinated Quebec health workers by region
- Six days ago, Dubé called the PQ ‘irresponsible’ for suggesting a delay in vaccination deadline
- Dubé ‘threw the dice and lost his bet’ on vaccine deadline, Québec solidaire says
- Liberals compare Dubé to parent who doesn’t follow through on warnings
- Video: Dubé defends decision to delay deadline for health workers to get the jab
- After flipflop, Dubé insists new vaccination deadline – Nov. 15 – is firm
- Province reports 512 cases, 7 deaths as hospitalizations rise
- Legault’s approval rating plummeted 10 points since the summer, poll suggests
- Alberta to keep vaccine passport into at least early 2022
- U.S. to lift Canada land border restrictions in November for vaccinated visitors
- A guide to Quebec’s COVID-19 vaccine passport
- Sign up for our free nightly coronavirus newsletter
4:15 p.m.
Thanks for reading
I’ll be back tomorrow with another live blog.
In the meantime, you can follow all our coverage via the coronavirus page.
My previous COVID-19 live blogs are available here.
3:45 p.m.
Saskatchewan planning to send critical COVID-19 patients to Ontario
Saskatchewan is preparing to send some of its critical COVID-19 patients to Ontario as its hospitals are over capacity, The Canadian Press reports.
Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone said Wednesday that the province is preparing air ambulance flights.
Transfers to Ontario could likely happen this week, he said, but that depends on the admissions to Saskatchewan’s intensive care units.
“We’ve been in discussion with Ontario to provide care to Saskatchewan residents in the event that we will not be able to care for them within our standard of care,” Livingstone said.
On Tuesday, the province was two patients shy of having 116 people in its ICUs – the threshold that would trigger sending ICU patients out of province.
The number also means Saskatchewan’s ICUs are nearing 150 per cent capacity, which is when the province has said it would activate its triage protocol.
Saskatchewan has stopped all elective surgeries, started cancelling urgent surgeries and admitted adults into its children’s hospital. Additionally, more than 160 health-care workers have been redeployed.
“We are seeing unprecedented rates of hospitalizations and ICU admissions. This is pushing the system to a place where we are not providing care to non-COVID patients across this province as we should be,” Livingstone said.
He added that a major medical event would result in doctors choosing who does and does not get an intensive care bed.
3:30 p.m.
Canada welcomes U.S. decision to reopen land border to vaccinated Canadians
3:10 p.m.
‘It’s been too long’ – Canadian travellers welcome news of U.S. land border reopening
From The Canadian Press:
Canadians with family in the United States expressed relief Wednesday at the prospect of soon being able to drive across the border to visit their loved ones.
Betty Chaborek, who turned 77 on Wednesday, likened the easing of restrictions for fully vaccinated Canadians to “a super birthday present.”
“I’m so excited that I can barely wait. I was ready to go today,” Chaborek said with a chuckle during a phone interview.
The U.S. plan is set to take effect in early November, although a firm start date has not been released. It’s also unclear whether Canadians who received mixed vaccine doses will be deemed eligible.
For Chaborek, however, the news was nonetheless welcome.
The Windsor, Ont., resident said there had been many times during the pandemic when she’d stare at traffic on the Ambassador Bridge border crossing from her condo and wonder when she’d be allowed to drive over to see her family in the U.S.
Prior to the U.S. land border closing to Canadians when the pandemic hit, Chaborek said she would visit her daughter, her son-in-law and their two children in Michigan almost every weekend.
Chaborek said she’s looking forward to catching up with her family and celebrating upcoming holidays with them.
“This is absolutely incredible that we have the freedom to live our life like we want,” she said. “It’s been too long.”
Mike Osborne also couldn’t contain his excitement after hearing the news about the border reopening.
The Welland, Ont., resident said he used to see his daughter, her husband and their two-year-old son in Niagara Falls, N.Y., a few times a week before the global health crisis began.
“I’ve been waiting for such a long time to be able to cross over and see family actually, you know, physically, instead of it being always on FaceTime or Messenger and stuff like that,” he said.
The border being closed was especially difficult for his family, Osborne said, as he lost his wife to cancer in May – three days after Mother’s Day – and his daughter could only come across into Canada for short compassionate visits. He and his family in the U.S. haven’t seen each other since his wife died, he added.
“To know now that the border’s opening up to us, it’ll give us the time for us to heal together, in a physical way,” said Osborne.
Osborne said he is going to visit his family as soon as he can and plans to “spoil” them.
“We definitely are going to be celebrating Christmas. We’re probably going to make up for Thanksgiving. We’re going to make up for Easter,” he said. “I think we’re going to do all the holidays in about a week’s time.”
Fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents have been allowed back into Canada since August, provided they have waited at least 14 days since getting a full course of a Health Canada-approved vaccine and can show proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test.
The U.S. will not be requiring travellers to show proof of a negative test for COVID-19 as part of the new easing of restrictions.
2:20 p.m.
Here’s a breakdown of unvaccinated Quebec health workers by region
In Quebec, as of Monday, 22,446 health workers were unvaccinated – almost one-quarter of them in Montreal.
Of the provincial total, 14,613 (65 per cent) have not received a single dose, with the other 7,833 (35 per cent) having gotten their first jab.
Seven weeks ago, in late August, 43,461 health workers had yet to be fully vaccinated. Of those, 28,082 had not received a single dose, while the rest (15,379) had gotten their initial jab.
2:10 p.m.
PQ welcomes Dubé’s decision to delay vaccine deadline
The opposition Parti Québécois says it’s happy that Health Minister Christian Dubé “finally agreed to postpone the (vaccine deadline for health workers) by one month, as demanded by the PQ and unions last week.”
The party said it is “relieved to see the minister come to his senses and thus avoid service disruptions in the health system.”
“We are pleased to have been able, with the support of the unions, to convince the government of the merits of our proposal,” Joël Arseneau, the Parti Québécois health critic, said in a statement.
“The already weakened network cannot afford to lose even one more worker – that’s obvious,” he added, noting that suspending thousands of health workers as of Friday would have punished vaccinated workers who would be left behind to pick up the slack.
1:55 p.m.
After a pandemic-forced cancellation, Opération Nez Rouge returns
After being forced to suspend its 2020 operations because of the pandemic, Opération Nez Rouge announced on Wednesday it would resume its drive-home service in nearly 30 areas of Quebec over the coming holiday season.
1:40 p.m.
Six days ago, Dubé called the PQ ‘irresponsible’ for suggesting a delay in vaccination deadline
Less than a week ago, Health Minister Christian Dubé accused the Parti Québécois of being “irresponsible” for suggesting that he delay the deadline for mandatory vaccination among health workers.
“I was a little uncomfortable with (the PQ’s) statement … the PQ, for me, was irresponsible,” Dubé told a press conference on Oct. 7.
“I will be very clear – we will stay the course on compulsory vaccination. I remind you that this is a formal recommendation from public health, and I want to be very, very clear: we will be firm on Oct. 15.”
Today, he pushed back that deadline to Nov. 15.
Just yesterday, Dubé again told reporters that he would not delay the deadline.
1:35 p.m.
Dubé ‘threw the dice and lost his bet’ on vaccine deadline, Québec solidaire says
Vincent Marissal, the health critic for the opposition Québec solidaire, says Health Minister Christian Dubé’s vaccine mandate for health workers has been a failure.
“By forcing the vaccination of nursing staff in the health network without providing for a contingency plan, Dubé threw the dice and he lost his bet,” Marissal said in a statement.
“It is an admission of failure for the government to wait until the very last minute before moving back to its own deadline.”
Marissal added: “Let’s be clear: 48 hours from the abyss, it is better to turn back than to let the network collapse, but the government must absolutely learn from this failure and stop improvising.”
Dubé must redouble his efforts over the next 30 days to convince hesitant health workers to get vaccinated.
1:15 p.m.
Liberals compare Dubé to parent who doesn’t follow through on warnings
1:10 p.m.
Video: Dubé defends decision to delay deadline for health workers to get the jab
12:05 p.m.
After flipflop, Dubé insists new vaccination deadline – Nov. 15 – is firm
After insisting for days that he wouldn’t extend Quebec’s vaccination deadline for health workers, Health Minister Christian Dubé did just that this morning.
Under the province’s vaccine mandate, health workers had until Friday to get fully vaccinated or face possible suspension without pay.
Forty-eight hours before that deadline, Dubé gave unvaccinated health employees a 30-day reprieve – they must now get their shots by Nov. 15.
Speaking to reporters, Dubé said he’s “encouraged” by the rising vaccination rate among employees since he announced the vaccine mandate in August.
About 96 per cent of health workers have now received at least one dose.
However, about 22,000 employees are still not fully vaccinated – 14,613 have not received a single dose, while the other 7,833 having gotten their first jab.
If Quebec suspended all of them as of Friday as originally planned, the health system would not be able to cope, Dubé said.
Some operating rooms would have to close and some long-term care homes (CHSLDs) would have to close beds, he added.
“We would find ourselves adding undue pressure on our network, and especially on the vaccinated health workers who have been at the front for months,” Dubé said. “We would run into a wall.”
Dr. Lucie Opatrny, a deputy health minister, said the network would not have been overwhelmed but there would have been a “considerable reduction” in services in the health system.
“Everything that is critical and important and urgent would have still continued because those plans have been worked on for weeks,” Opatrny told reporters.
“It wouldn’t have been a breakdown but it would have been an important stress (on the network) and an important reduction in services.”
The announcement came despite Dubé’s repeated assertions as recently as Tuesday that the deadline would not be delayed. Less than a week ago, he accused the Parti Québécois of being “irresponsible” for suggesting the deadline be delayed.
On Wednesday, Dubé insisted that the new deadline is firm.
“We want to give the unvaccinated staff extra time to get their dose,” he said.
“I want to be clear: we will apply the mandatory vaccination for health workers, but postponing the deadline by 30 days is the best solution under the circumstances.”
He also announced that:
- Nurses not adequately vaccinated by Nov. 15 will not be eligible for bonuses of up to $18,000 under Quebec’s $1-billion plan to retain and attract full-time nurses.
- Unvaccinated health workers in the public network who provide direct services to the public must continue to be tested at least three times a week before their shift. That testing rule has now been extended to the private sector. And it may at a later date be extended to health employees who do not deal directly with patients.
11:25 a.m.
Update on Quebec’s vaccination campaign
11:25 a.m.
Updated charts: Quebec cases, deaths
11:05 a.m.
Quebec reports 512 cases, 7 deaths as hospitalizations rise
Quebec has recorded 512 new cases of COVID-19, the provincial government announced this morning.
In addition, 7 new deaths were reported.
Some other key statistics from Quebec’s latest COVID-19 update:
- Montreal Island: 134 cases, 7 deaths.
- Net increase in hospitalizations: 7, for a total of 298. (21 entered hospital, 14 were discharged)
- Net increase in intensive care patients: 3, for a total of 75. (7 entered ICUs, 4 were discharged)
- 9,336 additional vaccine doses were administered over the previous 24 hours.
- 26,148 tests were conducted Monday, the last day for which screening data is available.
- Positivity rate: 1.8 per cent.
10:40 a.m.
Legault’s approval rating plummeted 10 points since the summer, poll suggests
“Be it fourth wave frustrations, pushback over mask and vaccine mandates, or post-COVID anxiety, Canadians have grown significantly less impressed with their provincial leaders since the summer,” the Angus Reid Institute said today as it unveiled new polling data.
Premier François Legault was among the premiers whose popularity waned.
After enjoying relatively stable favourability rates over the last year, Legault’s approval has fallen 10 percentage points to 56 per cent since the summer, the firm said.
This still makes Legault, who is up for reelection in just under a year, one of the most approved of premiers in the country.
And despite the drop, “Legault still commands a majority approval rating and commentators have highlighted that the Coalition Avenir Québec’s dominance in almost every demographic segment of the electorate has no precedence in the province’s history.”
9:45 a.m.
Vaccine mandate: Dubé to outline plan today to cope with mass suspension of health workers
Health Minister Christian Dubé is scheduled to hold an 11 a.m. press conference today to explain how Quebec will cope with the expected loss of thousands of health workers as of Friday.
That’s the deadline for the workers to get vaccinated or face suspension without pay.
It’s unclear how many employees will be affected by the mass suspension as the minister has mentioned several numbers in recent weeks.
Yesterday, he said the unvaccinated health workers include 3,000 nurses and 2,500 orderlies.
The Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec yesterday said 4,338 nurses are not adequately vaccinated, and 2,807 are not vaccinated at all.
Quebec already lacks about 4,300 nurses due to a long-standing labour shortage.
I’ll provide coverage and a Iive feed of the 11 a.m. briefing.
9:40 a.m.
WHO unveils new scientific team to study COVID-19’s disputed origin
The World Health Organization proposed a fresh team to lead an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and other diseases after the last effort was wracked by controversy, the Bloomberg news agency reports.
The 26 proposed members of the group have expertise in a range of areas from epidemiology to biosecurity, the WHO said Wednesday. They include Marion Koopmans from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, Christian Drosten from the Institute of Virology at Charite in Berlin and Yungui Yang, the deputy director at the Beijing Institute of Genomics.
“Understanding where new pathogens come from is essential for preventing future outbreaks with epidemic and pandemic potential,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in the statement
A joint WHO-China mission early this year found that the coronavirus probably spread from bats to humans via another animal. Although the team considered a lab-leak incident the least likely hypothesis, the WHO director called for further research.
U.S. President Joe Biden has criticized China for stonewalling efforts to understand the genesis of SARS-CoV-2, while China has accused the U.S. and its allies of blaming it for a pandemic that has killed almost 5 million people globally.
Tedros has said that scientists still lack raw data on possible infections in late 2019. The WHO has proposed audits of the laboratories and research centers in Wuhan, the city where the first cases were identified, as well as studies on the animals, people and environments that may have played a role in the coronavirus’s emergence.
9:35 a.m.
Alberta to keep vaccine passport into at least early 2022
Premier Jason Kenney says the Alberta version of a vaccine passport is helping increase vaccinations and drive down COVID-19 cases, but notes it will be in place until at least the early months of next year, The Canadian Press reports.
“I fully expect that we will have it in place through at least the first quarter of next year…because we are headed into an uncertain period,” Kenney said Tuesday.
“We will have to be on our guard as we go into colder weather when people spend more time indoors. We will head into seasonal headwinds in terms of viral spread.”
Kenney and Health Minister Jason Copping said Alberta’s vaccine passport, which was introduced three weeks ago as a restrictions exemption program, is having the desired effect.
Alberta Health shows 85 per cent of eligible Albertans, those aged 12 and over, have now had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s up from 78 per cent a month ago.
More than 75 per cent have had the required two doses.
Other provinces have adopted the vaccine passport, mandating anyone using non-essential services such as bars and restaurants show proof of vaccination.
Alberta’s program is voluntary, but those businesses that do not participate are subject to restrictions — including severely reduced customer capacity.
9:30 a.m.
How do pandemics shape medicine?
9:20 a.m.
U.S. to lift Canada land border restrictions in November for vaccinated visitors
From Reuters and The Canadian Press:
The United States will lift restrictions at its land borders with Canada and Mexico for fully vaccinated foreign nationals in early November, ending historic curbs on non-essential travellers in place since March 2020 to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement the administration next month “will begin allowing travellers from Mexico and Canada who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to enter the United States for non-essential purposes, including to visit friends and family or for tourism, via land and ferry border crossings.”
The new rules are similar but not identical to planned requirements announced last month for international air travellers, U.S. officials said in a call earlier with reporters.
Lawmakers from U.S border states praised the move to lift the unprecedented restrictions which harmed the economies of local communities and has prevented visits to friends and families for 19 months.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, members of our shared cross-border community have felt the pain and economic hardship of the land border closures. That pain is about to end,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
Fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents have been allowed back into Canada since August, provided they have waited at least 14 days since getting a full course of a Health Canada-approved vaccine and can show proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test.
Beginning in early November, the U.S. plans to allow fully vaccinated visitors from a host of countries where stateside travel has long been restricted, including China, India, Ireland, Iran, South Africa, Brazil and the 26 European countries without border controls, known as the Schengen group.
Vaccines approved by either the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization will be accepted, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed this week.
But CDC stayed mum on the question of whether those who received a mixed course of vaccines — one dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca and one of Moderna, for instance — would be considered fully vaccinated for travel purposes.
Questions put to the CDC were not immediately answered earlier on Tuesday.
9:15 a.m.
Panel to examine pandemic’s disproportionate impact on racialized people
Organized by AMI-Quebec, an online event tomorrow will focus on racism, diversity and mental health.
Read our full story, by Susan Schwartz.
9:15 a.m.
The situation across Canada
Here’s the rate of case growth per 100,000 people over the past seven days, via the federal government’s latest epidemiological update.
9:15 a.m.
A guide to Quebec’s COVID-19 vaccine passport
Quebec’s vaccine passport is mandatory for people 13 and older who want to access services and activities deemed non-essential by the provincial government, including bars, restaurants, gyms, festivals and sporting events.
Quebecers can use a smartphone app to prove their vaccination status or simply carry their QR code on paper.
The app is available from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
We have published two guides to the passports – one looks at how to download and set up the app, and another answers key questions about the system, including how, when and why.
You can find more information on the Quebec government’s website – one page has details on how the system works, and another has a list of the places where a vaccine passport will be required.
9:15 a.m.
A guide to COVID-19 vaccinations in Quebec
Local health authorities have set up mass vaccination sites across Montreal.
You can book appointments via the Clic Santé website or by phone at 1-877-644-4545.
Quebecers can also visit walk-in AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer vaccine clinics.
Here are the nuts and bolts of getting vaccinated, by Katherine Wilton. Her guide includes the age groups targeted, how to book appointments, and addresses of vaccination centres.
9:15 a.m.
Here are the current pandemic restrictions in Montreal and Quebec
We are regularly updating our list of what services are open, closed or modified in Montreal and Quebec, including information on the curfew and other lockdown measures.
9:15 a.m.
Here’s where Montrealers can get tested today
Montrealers can be screened at test centres across the island.
For other parts of Quebec, check out this page on the Quebec government’s site.
8:30 a.m.
Sign up for our free nightly coronavirus newsletter
Stay informed with our daily email newsletter focused on local coronavirus coverage and other essential news, delivered directly to your email inbox by 7 p.m. on weekdays.
You can sign up here.
Read my previous live blogs here.
