Quebec's General Population Could Start Getting Vaccine Doses 'Towards The End Of May'

At a press conference in Beauce on Thursday, Health Minister Christian Dubé announced that he hopes the government will be able to start vaccinating Quebec's general population by the end of May.

"Towards the end of May, we'll be able to take care of category eight and nine and we'll be able to move to the general population," said the health minister.

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Categories eight and nine include people under 60 with chronic health problems and essential workers.

Dubé said that there is a surplus of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the province.

"Because we still have 200,000 AstraZeneca vaccines that we didn't anticipate, it could allow us to accelerate [towards] the general population before the end of May," explained Dubé.

"I'd like to give people these appointments within the coming weeks, I think that'll encourage people," the health minister concluded, recalling Premier Legault's goal of returning to "a certain normalcy" by June 24.