LETTER FROM MONTREAL
In Montreal, the spring mildness of June coincided with the glorious epic of the Canadiens, the city’s hockey team, which reached the Stanley Cup final. Not an evening without the city vibrating in unison with the exploits of the “Habs”. On match nights, pick-ups bearing the team’s blue-white-red flag paraded the streets; the bars finally reopened were filled with tricolor crowds massed in front of giant screens; at the Bell Center, where the prestigious hockey team performs, ticket prices were soaring.
A popular craze that the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec has tried to turn into a health craze. In collaboration with the owners of the Montreal team, she set up, within the Bell sports complex, a walk-in clinic to administer doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. With success: on June 16, 60% of the available doses had found takers in the evening. Doses to which were quickly added free hot dogs to make the offer even more attractive.
To convince young people of the benefits of sport as much as of the vaccine, the National Hockey League has made a commitment to offer twenty-two jerseys of the beloved team to Quebecers aged 18 to 29 able to provide proof of the administration of their first dose. Twenty-two, like the number under which his star, striker Cole Caufield plays. In a short video posted on social media, the 20-year-old athlete himself encouraged “Vaccination, especially for people from [son] age “.
Attract the “last Gauls”
The promise of a small bonus for a dose: everything is done to try to attract “Last Gauls”, as qualified by the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé. The last “resisters”, these some 170,000 young Quebecers aged 18 to 39 – one in three – who were still reluctant, in mid-June, to be administered the magic potion.
In order to achieve collective immunity from Covid-19, a sine qua non condition for resuming a “normal” life, especially from an economic point of view, Canadian public institutions, businesses and businesses have not hesitated to mix gifts or disguised payments and vaccine stake.
The provinces of Manitoba and Alberta have both run ‘double-dose’ lotteries, with prizes of up to C $ 2 million (€ 1.4 million) donated in cash. or on a scholarship.
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