By: Thomas I. Likness
Eagle News Service

(Eagle News) — Mandatory vaccines may be the next step Canadian provinces will have to take to deal with surging case numbers of COVID-19, said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

“What we see now is that our health care system in Canada is fragile, our people are tired, and the only way that we know to get through COVID-19, this variant and any future variant, is through vaccination,” Duclos said Friday. “That’s why I’m signaling this is a conversation which I believe provinces and territories, in support with the federal government, will want to have over the next weeks and months.”

Duclos says he personally believes that compulsory vaccination will happen.

He says current public health measures such as masking and social distancing aren’t enough to tame the COVID-19 virus and its variants.

Duclos says unvaccinated people are putting an unnecessary burden on the healthcare system.

“Fifty per cent of hospitalizations now, in Quebec, are due to people not having been vaccinated,” he said. “That’s a burden on health care workers, a burden on society which is very difficult to bear and for many people difficult to understand.”

COVID-19 cases in Canada’s have increased by 65% in the last week, said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam.

She says the numbers are the highest since the pandemic began.

“Case counts are already about 400 per cent higher than the peak of the third wave,” Tam said.

In Europe several countries are either implementing or considering mandatory immunization.

In Greece, people who are not vaccinated for COVID-19 by Jan. 15 will be fined 100 Euros or US$113 a month.

(Eagle News Service)