MONTREAL — Quebec has not only changed its broad vaccine strategy, as announced last Thursday, but it’s following it to the letter — there’s no exception even for the elderly residents of a Montreal care home who hit their planned booster date on Monday.
The Maimonides long-term care home in Cote-Saint-Luc was one of the first two nursing homes in Quebec to have it residents vaccinated, beginning Dec. 14.
That was exactly three weeks ago, making Jan. 4 the date of their previously scheduled second shot for the Pfizer vaccine.
“I would like to advise you of a significant change,” wrote Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, the CEO of the CIUSSS that oversees Maimonides, in a statement to residents and staff that was sent to CTV on Monday.
“Individuals who have already received the first of their two doses of the Pfizer vaccine will have to wait longer than expected to get their second dose.”
The change applies to staff and residents at the care home, the CIUSSS told CTV News.
Those doses will be “redirected” to give more people their first doses, he wrote, explaining the province’s that “protection will be extended to the maximum number of people as quickly as possible,” even if immunity after one dose isn’t as high as it is after the second dose.
“I realize that this may disappoint some of you who had hoped to get your second injection three weeks after your first, as originally planned,” he wrote.
“Please rest assured that this change will not affect your health or well-being.”
Other Canadian jurisdictions have followed the same strategy of giving as many first doses as possible without holding any vaccine in reserve, Rosenberg said, and this model is “supported by Pfizer.”
However, some Quebec health-care workers have been unhappy about the change of plans, including some who say they’re unsure how well the vaccine will work if its intended use isn’t followed.
Rosenberg wrote that “research has shown that the Pfizer vaccine achieves 90 per cent effectiveness two weeks after the first dose has been administered. The second dose is a ‘booster’ shot that enhances the already high level of protection.”
He didn’t put a timeline on when Maimonides staff or residents will get their second shots.
“When more doses of the vaccine become available, you will be advised when and where you can get your second shot,” he wrote.
The extra doses freed up right now will go towards staff at other long-term care homes, he said.
“The remaining doses will be evenly distributed locally among CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, the MUHC and St. Justine Hospital.”
Within all three institutions, priority will go to workers in COVID-19 hot zones and other places where they come into contact with COVID patients, including ICUs, operating rooms, dialysis clinics and “similar locations,” he wrote.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
