Quebec’s COVID-19 booster rates stay low as province rolls out new vaccination campaign

As of this week, only 56 per cent of Quebecers aged five and older had received a third vaccine dose — a number that has hardly budged in months.

As Quebec prepares to launch a provincewide COVID-19 vaccination campaign ahead of a potential new fall wave, it’s unclear whether it will be enough to prompt a pandemic-weary public to roll up their sleeves for another booster.

As of Wednesday, only 56 per cent of Quebecers aged five and older had received a third vaccine dose — a number that has hardly budged in months. Government officials have said that the low booster uptake is due to the fact that millions of Quebecers have caught the novel coronavirus and consider themselves adequately protected.

Health experts, meanwhile, say pandemic fatigue and government communication have also played a role.

Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious diseases specialist at the McGill University Health Centre, points the finger at the provincial government’s messaging. Vinh says the government should have more strongly promoted boosters over the past six to eight months instead of making a big push at a time when the current wave of COVID-19 is waning.

If there had been a “consistent and clear” advisory on boosters, “more people would have been protected and all the consequences of the infection over the last few months would have been avoided,” he said in an interview.

Jason Harley, an associate professor in the department of surgery at McGill University, believes many people have shifted to a “post-COVID mentality” that leads them to stop listening to public health advice. After two years of the pandemic, worry has changed to overconfidence.

“A lot of this has to do with exhaustion with the pandemic,” they said in an interview.

“It has been over two years, and there was a tremendous amount of anxiety that a lot of people were living with on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to hour-basis, so it’s it’s normal and reflexive that people would look for ways to feel better,” said Harley, who is also has a PhD in educational psychology.