Vaccination against Covid: the recall campaign accelerates before Macron’s speech

Is there Macron’s influence on the COVID-19 vaccination campaign? As the epidemic regains strength, the head of state again addresses the French on Tuesday at 8 pm to discuss the health crisis, five months before the presidential election.

The announcement issued on Friday was accompanied by a noticeable increase in the dates of the booster dose. The last speech of the head of state on the pandemic, which notably announced the extension of the health permit this summer, was followed by a major push for the vaccination campaign. This is also one of the goals of Tuesday’s intervention, which should also address the thorny issue of the third dose. Not knowing what the President of the Republic would announce, the qualified French took the lead.

Friday, the day of the announcement, the Doctolib electronic platform recorded at least 65 thousand appointments, compared to 52 thousand the previous day and 39 thousand the previous Friday, knowing that this is not the only way to book an appointment for vaccination.

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If 74% of the population receives this new dose in nursing homes, people under 65 years of age with comorbidities are left far behind. Coverage is up to 19% only for those who already qualify for a booster dose. We admit to the Ministry of Health: “We have a problem of this public’s ignorance of their rights, but we also have a very limited problem.”

The booster dose in the health aisle?

Is the validity of the health card required a third dose? Will he announce a plan for a third dose for everyone, as in Israel and soon in Germany? The Defense Council, scheduled for Tuesday morning, should allow the President of the Republic to decide on the matter. “If we think carefully and take into account the fact that we are fighting an active epidemic, then with the data we have, the ideal vaccination would be with three doses,” estimates Professor Jean-Daniel Lelliver, immunologist and expert with High Authority Health (HAS), interviewed by L’Express.

However, forcing health into a booster vaccination is not without complications. “We are no longer just in science, there is a very political aspect that complicates the message,” nuance Jean-Daniel Leifer. For the Academy of Medicine, this measure “violates the health card’s role, which is to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus and encourage the population to be vaccinated.” It adds that this “creates some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccination and creates unjustified discrimination against the most vulnerable people who have already agreed to receive the first two doses of the vaccine.”

The importance of the third dose

However, the third dose seems inevitable given the deteriorating health status. “The epidemic is currently regressing, if we look at the speed of progress by age group, where it is faster in people aged 60-80 years,” confirms L’Express Philippe Amuel, an epidemiologist and professor of public health at the University of Lille Hospital.

This booster is widely recommended because the efficacy of vaccine protection wanes over time, especially in the face of the delta variant, which is still the majority in France. With winter approaching, and the vaccination campaign now spanning more than ten months, vaccinated people are becoming less immune, especially the older and more vulnerable who received injections as a priority last winter.

For several days, the country recorded about 10,000 new daily infections, and more than 6,500 people are currently in hospital. More than sixty districts have returned above the alert threshold – set at 50 new cases per 100,000 residents. Other indicators that are on the rise again include the number of critical care admissions and deaths.

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“However, the severity of the infection is still much lower than what was known before the vaccination campaign,” confirms Mylene Auglestro, virologist and director of research at INRAE ​​in Montpellier. We were lucky to have a vaccine. Malgré les changes du virus, ce vaccin reste très efficace pour nous protéger contre les forms graves de l’infection”. Elle note par ailleurs une baisse de l’immunité chez les plus de 65 ans. Mais “sans incitation forte à une dose de rappel, on pourrait arrive aux vacances de Noël avec un taux de contaminations relative to élevé entraînant une surcharge des hôpitaux au début de l’année 2022”, prévient Renaud Piarroux, chef du service de parasitologie-mycologie-alêre à lêre , In Paris.

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Written by Aurélien Saussay, Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, an environmental economist who specializes in issues of the energy transition.

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