Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:45 on 2021-04-20 Permalink Reply  

• jeather 14:23 on 2021-04-20 Permalink

  As someone who misses the cutoff, I am disappointed — it seems like they chose 45 just to be different. (Their explanations for why 45 and not 40 were mostly word salad, with the “well the risk of blood clots vs getting covid”, which is going to rebound on them badly in a few weeks when they have to reduce the age limit. The probably correct answer of “we don’t want to overwhelm the vaccination centres so we will reduce it to 40 in 3 weeks” would have been the best one, but they are into lying for our own good.)

• Tim 15:50 on 2021-04-20 Permalink

  Here is a list of sites that will be open as of tomorrow for 45 and up: https://santemontreal.qc.ca/population/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccination/#c51696

• jeather 15:55 on 2021-04-20 Permalink

  Someone told me — I haven’t seen it validated — that they don’t have enough vaccines to do the 40-44 group, which would also have been a completely reasonable explanation to give for why 45.

• Joey 16:07 on 2021-04-20 Permalink

  There are 200,000 doses of AZ to administer and 800,000 people aged 45-55. Lowering to 40 (I wish!) seems like it couldn’t possibly work at this point. Let’s say 2/3 of all people want a vaccine but only half of those would accept AZ, that still leaves only 200K doses for 800K*2/3*1/2 = 266K people, not counting all those over 55 who are already eligible for AZ. Bref, if you want one, make an appointment at midnight (or whenever the system allows it; the minister was pretty unclear in his answer).

• GC 08:20 on 2021-04-21 Permalink

  Having only 200000 doses for 800000 people does seems like a reasonable reason to not lower the age more but, as jeather said, no reason to be opaque about that. (Full disclosure: I *did* make the cutoff, and could be biased…)

  If the over 45s don’t snap those does up quickly enough, I’m sure the age will be lowered before long. When I was trying to make an appointment after ten last night, they kept getting taken before I could fill out the whole form online. Of course, I’ve heard that lots of the 55+ crowd were making appointments and not showing up for them, so I suppose that’s not a perfect indicator of how quickly they’ll be taken.

• walkerp 09:33 on 2021-04-21 Permalink

  They are going to be used up fast, is my layman’s prediction. 45 to 55 and you are moving into many parents of young children, people used to doing things on the internet and less exposed to misinformation. Also more mobile. And then any time you open it up to a new age group, you are going to get the keeners at first. It looks like I already missed my window for any appointments anywhere near me.

  Can anybody roughly calculate how long the walk-ins will have vaccines? Is it worth it to go for an early line up tomorrow?

• mare 12:08 on 2021-04-21 Permalink

  @walkerp Anecdotal evidence, but the people at the Olympic Stadium told me there had been long lines all day but when I arrived at 19h00 there were only 35 people and I was in-and-out in an hour. That was on the first day of the 55+ cohort, when they still had to work out the kinks of the “no appointments necessary” vaccination routine. They’re probably even more efficient now.
  From what I read in the media, the Olympic Stadium and Palais de congres are the busiest sites, maybe Vanier and other sites are faster.

  Maybe it’s different now, with a younger age group, I can’t tell you for sure.