Quebec is no longer offering free COVID-19 vaccines for everyone. Public health director Dr. Luc Boileau told CTV News the vaccines will still be offered to high-risk groups for free, including the immunocompromised, those 65 and older, health-care workers and pregnant people. Everyone else will either have to wait until the prioritization campaign is over or pay for the jab out of pocket. According to the Quebec association of pharmacists (Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires), doses will cost between $150 and $180. Boileau said the government no longer recommends vaccination for everyone as the population has developed a certain herd immunity over the last five years. Quebec is also no longer receiving free doses from Ottawa, so Boileau says the government must forecast how many doses it needs. Nicholas Brousseau, an immunization expert at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), says the move is in line with public health recommendations. He says the vulnerable population targeted in the vaccination campaign are those who are at risk of landing in the hospital following a COVID infection. They still represent nearly half of the population, he says. “But now, young healthy individuals are at very very very low risk of having severe infection, so it makes sense to target those more at-risk for this program,” Brousseau told CTV News. He stresses that young people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, or HIV, qualify for the vaccine and the challenge will be to inform them. But patient care advocate Paul Brunet believes some people may be vulnerable without knowing it, or may have high-risk loved ones, and won’t get vaccinated due to high costs. “That’s the risk. That’s not worth it,” he said. “On a universal access to care as this kind of principle we must oppose the selection categorization of who can get it for free and who will not get it free?” He accused the government of trying to save money by cutting corners and worried it could have larger repercussions. With files from CTV News Montreal’s Caroline van Vlaardingen and Max Harrold
