The President of the Republic assured Monday on the move that it would probably take another "4 to 6 weeks" before seeing the end of the tunnel.

Because by then, it is the executive's bet, more French people will be vaccinated, which will automatically drop the number of hospitalizations.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has just been authorized for 65-74 year olds.

DECRYPTION

The bar of 3 million French people vaccinated against the coronavirus was almost reached on Monday evening, more than half of whom received both doses.

And this vaccination campaign will accelerate in the coming weeks, because the High Authority of Health has officially authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 65 years old.

On France 2 Monday evening, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran indeed announced that the latter was now authorized for people aged 65 to 74 who present with comorbidities.

-94% of severe forms according to a Scottish study

Until now, the Haute Autorité de santé had decided to reserve this vaccine for people aged 50 to 64 with co-morbidities, because the efficacy data in older subjects were not sufficient.

But that was before a large Scottish study: 400,000 people received the AstraZeneca vaccine there and the results are very encouraging.

According to them, the number of severe forms drops by 94% for people who received the serum.

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Data which could therefore well have pushed the High Authority of Health to change its tune and finally authorize the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s.

"Speed ​​up" to avoid re-containment

"There seems to be stocks of AstraZeneca, and that we have quite a few. And we know that the 50-65 year olds with comorbidities, roughly it is 60 to 80 patients per general practitioner, so it is not a huge target ", underlines general practitioner Jérôme Marty, for whom this opening to over 65s is therefore very good news.

"Even though this disease is starting to take off again in certain departments, it is important to speed up and rely on general practitioners."

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France has already received 1.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which should lead to an intensification of the campaign in the coming weeks, and see the "AstraZeneca bashing" decrease at the same time: side effects sometimes observed, headaches and fatigue, will quickly be relegated to the background if this vaccine allows the French to avoid re-containment.