MONTREAL, Quebec (LifeSiteNews) – Quebec has passed a series of tougher COVID restrictions, including shutting places of worship to those without vaccine passport, only a week before Christmas.
The impositions were made among reports of rising cases of COVID-19.
“I don’t have good news” said Quebec’s Premier François Legault at a press conference Thursday evening where he announced the new restrictions. They were also published on his government’s official website.
Legault first announced that from next Monday, December 20, all bars, restaurants, theatres, movie theatres and gyms will have to reduce their capacity to 50%, with a maximum capacity of 250 people, to “reduce contacts” between people.
But the new measure will apply to churches and other places of worship as well, and the faithful will be required to show a proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or “vaccine passport” to attend normal worship services. Funerals and weddings can still be held without a vaccine passport requirement as long as the maximum attendance of 25 people is respected.
Certain social activities considered “high risk,” such as office parties, karaoke singing, and dancing, will also be banned from Monday onward, and the current limit of 20 people for indoor private gatherings will be reduced to 10.
“Even with 10 people, we have to be extremely cautious and do it only if absolutely necessary,” Legault said.
These new restrictions, especially those affecting churches and other places of worship, are similar to what has already been decided in other countries for the Christmas holidays. In Germany, the Archdiocese of Berlin recently announced that a vaccine passport would be required to attend most church services during Advent and Christmas, severely limiting the opportunities for unvaccinated people to attend Mass during those times.
In Quebec, Catholic Church officials have not issued any statement in reaction to the premier’s announcement so far. A local religious newspaper indicated that Monsignor Pierre Murray, the secretary general of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops, has been discussing the new measures with health officials since yesterday evening.
Reactions did come from the Association of Baptist and Evangelical churches in Quebec, however.
“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the premier’s announcement,” said Rev. Louis Bourque, the president of the association.
“The reactions are very bad. Many churches were dreading that, sooner or later, health authorities would mandate the vaccine passport, and now they’re being told that unvaccinated people will no longer be able to enter their places of worship,” he explained.
“Are we going to organize a reaction against this? I don’t know,” he added, speculating that some churches that do not want to impose the vaccine passport might close their doors to the public and resume church services on Zoom. He also indicated that many church leaders would be reluctant to minister to “two classes of citizens, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”
The new restrictions come amid fears of skyrocketing numbers of COVID cases in the province after a report published by INESSS, a Quebec government healthcare institute, made dire projections regarding the numbers of potential upcoming COVID-19 hospitalizations
Official reports from Quebec’s health authorities signalled a peak of 2736 new cases registered within 24 hours yesterday, close to Quebec’s highest ever recorded number of 2880 new cases on January 6 of this year.
Legault said that new preliminary figures to be released today even show 3700 new infections per day.
After giving the public the alarming figures, the premier claimed that the number of hospitalizations is higher among the unvaccinated.
“Experts say, and we have numbers every day to prove this, that unvaccinated people are 15 times more likely to contract the virus than vaccinated people; this is scientifically proven,” he claimed.
His statement appears to be in direct contradiction, however, with what Dr. Robert Malone, one of the inventors of mRNA vaccines, recently said regarding contamination and spread of COVID-19 when he argued that the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated, are the true “super-spreaders” of the disease. Data from other countries also support this claim.
Legault then added that even if the vaccinated people are “less likely to end up in the hospital,” they are still “at risk,” and argued that the vaccines are “insufficient” to fight the virus and called for less contact and more social distancing over Christmas.
“It’s important to note that in this battle we’re fighting, the vaccine is not enough,” he said. “The second weapon we have is to be able to reduce contacts, to be less often close to other people.”
Before announcing the new restrictions, he stated that Quebec’s “objective is to reduce contacts by 50% in the next few weeks.”
In addition, Legault also urged Quebecers to get a third dose or “booster” of the experimental mRNA vaccines.
“The third dose helps to reduce the risks of catching the virus and having consequences that bring people to the hospital,” he stated and described the booster as “a key” to fight the pandemic.
Similar arguments were made at a previous press conference by Quebec’s Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé.
“More than 30,000 have contracted the virus in the past 30 days,” Dubé stated before claiming that “the non-adequately vaccinated people represent more than 50% of these cases and hospitalizations, and two-thirds of them end up in the ICU.”
This claim is contradicted by other data from various countries on COVID-19 hospitalizations which point, in fact, to an opposite trend, namely that vaccinated people are a higher percentage of people hospitalized by COVID, mainly because the protection provided by the jabs against the virus is fast waning and insufficient. They also cause a weakening of the immune system.
Dubé then blamed the alleged high rate of hospitalizations on the unvaccinated though he admitted that they now represent only 10% of Quebec’s eligible population.
“Why do I often speak of unvaccinated people?” asked Dubé.
“Not only because they represent a great number of cases, but also because they represent only 10% of the eligible population.”
He encouraged unvaccinated people to change their mind and “reconsider their choice.”
However, Dubé’s next point weakened his argument, for he admitted the inefficacy of the vaccines.
“Even once vaccinated you can still catch the virus for all sorts of reasons… Sometimes people don’t wear the right kind of mask,” he said.
Dubé offered the same solution to the problem, namely less contact among people.
“The less contacts you have, the fewer risks you’ll run, especially as Christmas approaches…” he urged.
The premier even suggested that unvaccinated people should be shunned over Christmas.
“If you gather, please, do it among vaccinated people only,” he said.
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