With the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 5-11 underway in Quebec, CHIP 101.9 spoke with Dr. Carol McConnery, a medical consultant with the public health department of the CISSSO, to discuss this latest development.

McConnery explained that parents can make appointments for their children through the provincial portal Clic Santé, adding that they will also be vaccinating children in their schools, starting Monday. For rural areas like Pontiac and Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, there will be a mobile team travelling from facility to facility. Parents will receive details on the roll out from their school. Parental consent forms are required for those under the age of 14:

She explained that currently, only the pediatric formulation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in Canada. It is a smaller dose, roughly a third of the amount of the formulation for those 12 and up. Two doses are required, with an eight week interval between them:

McConnery said that while children tend to have milder symptoms from COVID-19 and are hospitalized less than adults, the vaccinations are necessary to limit spread among the rest of the population. She noted that while they are not 100 per cent effective at preventing infection, vaccinated people who contract the virus tend to experience milder symptoms than the unvaccinated:

More information on the Quebec’s vaccination plan for children is available here.

The full interview with McConnery is available below: