96% of quebec teachers vaccinated against covid-19: poll
the poll landed friday just as a committee of the legislature on mandatory vaccination was sitting down for a second day of hearings.
aug 27 2021
2 minute read
quebec health minister christian dube arrives at a legislature committee studying mandatory vaccination, at the provincial legislature in quebec city, thursday, aug. 26, 2021.
jacques boissinot
/
the canadian press
by: philip authier
quebec – a total of 96 per cent of quebec elementary and high school teachers say they are fully vaccinated against covid-19 , a new poll finds.
commissioned by the quebec government, the synopis recherche marketing poll also reveals eight teachers out of 10 support the idea of making vaccination obligatory in the education system.
the poll landed friday just as a committee of the legislature was sitting down for a second day of hearings on quebec’s plan to make vaccination obligatory for health-care workers and and whether it should be extended other workers who have prolonged contact with citizens.
the rate of vaccination for health workers is 86 per cent, leaving about 30,000 not vaccinated , health minister christian dubé told the committee thursday.
the committee friday took the discussion into the education system with teacher union representatives appearing in the morning.
horario arruda, the director of public health, has said he did not see the necessity to extend obligatory vaccination to teachers and other workers in the education sector but the subject is up for debate.
until now, nobody had been able to say how many of quebec’s 100,000 elementary and high school teachers are vaccinated.
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appearing before the committee friday morning, an irritated sylvain mallette, president of the fédération autonome de l’enseignment, representing 50,000 teachers, said the poll of teachers was conducted without his knowledge.
mallette has been a harsh critic of education minister jean-françois roberge’s handling of the pandemic in the schools.
he dismissed the poll as a government “marketing campaign,” to show the situation in the school system is under control.
“it is pretty strange that the results are made public today,” mallette told the committee.
he argued such data will only create a false sense of security in the system because it is not only teachers who are physically present in the schools.
but the poll bolsters the government’s view that the education system is able to cope with the pandemic. earlier this week, roberge announced the return of masks for elementary and high school students in nine regions of quebec.
the synopsis recherche marketing poll was conducted from aug. 20 to 24. the firm surveyed 501 teachers.
“almost all teachers are fully vaccinated,” the poll says.
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