Quebec vaccine passport working on Android phones

By Marc Lalonde, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Vaxicode vaccine passport app can now be downloaded onto Android phones after the provincial health minister said Quebec is ready to go with its vaccine passport that came into effect yesterday morning.

On the Google Play Store, searching out “Vaxicode” with the double quotation marks will allow users to download and apply the app, which scans the QR code accompanying vaccinations and will allow admission to those who are fully vaccinated access to bars, restaurants, gyms, team sports, festivals and mall food courts, among others.

If you don’t yet have the app, paper proof or the original QR code will also suffice, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube said.

“If you don’t have the app, you can just show your QR code. It’s much easier if you have the app but if you don’t have the time to load the app, you can still show the QR code on a piece of paper or whatever,” he said, adding that the province would be ready to go forward yesterday.

“We’ll be ready and we’ll start as promised on September 1,” Dube said Tuesday.

Dube said businesses and merchants will have two weeks to get their act together on vaccine passport admissions and after that, penalties in the form of fines up to $6,000 could be enforced.

Dube tweeted out a statistic that showed roughly 90 percent of new cases are manifesting in individuals who are not yet fully vaccinated.

“We see that about 90 percent of cases are people who are not fully vaccinated, thanks to the notion that nearly 70 per cent of Quebecers are fully vaccinated. The good news is that as of August 18, we were at 65 percent,” tweeted in French.

Students across Quebec went back to school this week, all of whom were wearing masks at all times in school, in a change of position from earlier this summer, when the Legault government initially indicated school could be mask-free in classes.

Young people also represent the smallest percentage of eligible Quebecers to have received the vaccine. The most recent statistics available show that only 77 percent of Quebecers aged 18 to 29 have gotten two jabs, contrasting with 86. 5 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds, 82 percent of 30-to-49-year-olds, and 91.7 percent of those aged 50 and over.

Across the province, 425 new cases were reported yesterday, with one new death bringing the death toll to 1 new death, for a total of 11,286 deaths. Hospitalizations increased slightly to 131, with 36 people across Quebec in intensive care thanks to the COVID-19 virus.

News from © Canadian Press Enterprises Inc. 2021.