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The announcement came just hours after a union president said not including teachers in a pilot project for those areas would be illogical and potentially dangerous.
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Montreal’s public health authority on Friday announced it will allow teachers working in COVID-19 hot spots in Côte-St-Luc and Côte-des-Neiges to receive the same access to vaccine as local parents.
The announcement came just hours after the head of the 2,600-member Fédération du personnel de l’enseignement privé said not providing the same protection to teachers as was being offered to the parents of the children they deal with was illogical and potentially dangerous.
“As a dangerous outbreak of the (U.K.) variant occurs in the sector, spread most notably in schools, the public health authority launches a pilot project of vaccinations for parents and refuses to protect the personnel directly at risk,” said union president Stéphane Lapointe.
Lapointe argued that health authorities would be increasing the risk of spreading the outbreak by not vaccinating teaching staff.
“At the end of their workday (teachers) return home to other neighbourhoods and even off the island of Montreal,” he said. “If these unvaccinated people are carrying the virus, they’ll be carrying it through the city and spreading contamination.”
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On Thursday, Dr. Mylène Drouin, the head of public health for Montreal, announced the city was launching a vaccination campaign targeting two areas where variants are spreading quickly.
A total of 26 per cent of new variant cases on Montreal Island are being found in northern Côte-St-Luc and the Plamondon area of Snowdon/Côte-des-Neiges.
Drouin said children are getting infected in daycares and schools in those areas, then passing the virus on to parents.
The decision to include teachers in the project was announced by Drouin on her Twitter account Friday afternoon.
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