In the joint press conference held on Tuesday with both Quebec’s Health Minister Christian Dubé and the President of the Quebec Emergency Medicine Specialists Association, Dr. Gilbert Bouchard, the National Director of Public Health in Quebec, Dr. Luc Boileau, spared no effort to convince people to get vaccinated, especially against the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when the number of respiratory virus infections is doubling, as reported in a new report.

"We have a (coronavirus) variant JN1 that is more contagious (and its cases) double every week," Dr. Boileau said at the time.

According to his estimates, there are currently "40,000 to 50,000 new COVID-19 cases daily," and this number has doubled twice within a few weeks, not counting flu cases which have started to take hold in recent weeks.

"About one million people in Quebec said in the past two weeks that they contracted a respiratory infection," Boileau said.

However, according to data obtained by Radio Canada, about an additional 10,000 people made appointments daily to get vaccinated, against COVID-19 or the flu, since the press conference on Tuesday.

"In the past seven days, we recorded an average of about 11,500 appointments daily (for vaccines against COVID-19 or the flu)," a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said in an email, "Since the press conference, just over 20,000 appointments have been made daily, with a peak of 25,000 appointments on the day of the announcement."

So far, fewer than 1.7 million people have received a dose of the flu vaccine.

"I am not convinced that people went (to get vaccinated) as much as we expected," Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh said earlier this week in an interview with Radio Canada.

The professor in the Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Montreal said she has "the impression that there is some fatigue (among people) regarding vaccines (...) even among healthcare workers (at a rate of 40 to 50%), where we see a slightly lower level of enthusiasm among this group of people who are well aware (...) of the risks of the disease."

The office of the Minister of Health and Social Services Christian Dubé also reminds that "the good practices adopted during the pandemic, including vaccination, are always necessary to protect ourselves and protect others (...) as well as to relieve pressure on emergency departments (in hospitals)."

Rapid tests are available free of charge at local service points. In pharmacies, the price of a box of rapid tests exceeds 40 dollars.

According to Dr. Boileau, "vulnerable and elderly people, pregnant women, children, and people with weakened immunity must be protected."