Quebec kids start getting COVID shots as provinces gear up for next stage of rollout
Posted November 24, 2021 1:31 pm.
Last Updated November 24, 2021 4:49 pm.
Children in Quebec are rolling up their sleeves today for COVID-19 shots as provinces launch the next stage of the country’s immunization effort.
Quebec’s campaign to inoculate kids with first doses by Christmas began this morning at mass vaccination centres, and it will be expanded to schools next week.
Premier Francois Legault wrote on Twitter that some 115,300 appointments have already been booked for the five-to-11 age cohort, which is the most recent to be made eligible for the vaccine. There are 650,000 children in the age group in the province.
Bonne nouvelle: on est déjà rendu à 115 300 rendez-vous pris pour les 5 à 11 ans. C'est ensemble qu'on peut faire la différence! ????
— François Legault (@francoislegault) November 24, 2021
Karan Kececi, 11, was one of the many children getting vaccinated at Montreal’s Palais des Congres on Wednesday.
“Realizing that I was going to get vaccinated, I felt pretty scared, pretty nervous, but now I’m realizing that it was just one second,” he said. “It was pretty simple.
“I feel good now because it’s sad getting COVID, but then it’s good getting the vaccine.”
Karan’s mother Ayse Kececi welcomed the province’s new vaccination policy and jumped on the first opportunity to get her boy an appointment.
“It’s been a very difficult one, two years for everybody, so it was just a relief to also have him vaccinated,” she said. “In our family, it was very important.
“We’ve been looking forward to this day very much because he was the last one not vaccinated in our family and it’s very important for us as a family to get vaccinated against COVID. So the moment it was announced, we were online and here we are and it’s done and we’re happy.”
#WATCH: “I will be able to go to Emily’s house and Lily’s house when they get vaccinated – without a mask,” says Larkin Webster, 7-year old who received her first dose of the Pfizer-created child COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday morning in Montreal. #COVID19 #vaccine pic.twitter.com/ziz4Kq6xOL
— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) November 24, 2021
Ali Al Fallougi’s nine-year-old son Ehsam also received the shot.
“That was amazing because I was looking to him and yes, he didn’t feel anything, he was just playing with the dog and that was perfect,” said Al Fallougi.
“We were very well welcomed by the people here for our son. He is nine years old, and we are very happy he is vaccinated. The next dose will be in eight weeks.”
A therapy dog was brought in to help comfort kids.
“Every single kid in my school or every kid in my class, everyone in school would be better, so I can actually play with all my friends,” said seven-year-old Larkin Webster.
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Montreal health officials say vaccination appointments are filling up quickly.
“All the places for today were already reserved, which is amazing,” said Jean Nicolas Aubé, spokesperson for the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. “At this moment now all the places are reserved through Monday. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come and have a vaccine with your children because you can, just come as a walk-in.”
Added Dr. Paul Le Guerrier, physician at Montreal Public Health: “We think that this is a really good vaccine. It’s a secure vaccine, it’s been shown to be highly efficacious. So far the studies have shown it to be 91 per cent effective against the disease and since it’s a third of the dose that we’re giving to adults, we expect less side effects.”
Ontario administered its first pediatric vaccines to a handful of children at Toronto’s SickKids hospital yesterday afternoon, and the government plans to begin vaccinating kids in earnest on Thursday in clinics across the province.
Saskatchewan is expected to start vaccinating children today, while Alberta and British Columbia have announced plans to begin in the coming days.
Health Canada approved for children a modified version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last week, and the agency says the vaccine is almost 91 per cent effective.
