The National Academy of Medicine estimated on Tuesday that the coronavirus vaccine should be made compulsory for many professions and also for children and adolescents.
It also ruled that "such an obligation can only be introduced gradually".
The National Academy of Medicine considers this Tuesday essential to make the vaccine against Covid-19 compulsory for many professions and to vaccinate children and adolescents, according to it the only way to achieve "collective immunity sufficient to control the epidemic".
Already mentioned a few months ago, the issue of compulsory vaccination came up against the shortage of vaccines and uncertainties about their level of effectiveness, but "with an effectiveness rate of 90% to 95% against the forms serious of Covid-19, the vaccines currently approved in France (...) meet the conditions which allow resorting to the vaccination obligation ", judges the institution.
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"Individual measures (barrier gestures) and collective (curfew, confinement) are incapable of controlling over time" the Covid-19 epidemic, "formidable, in particular socially", argues the academy.
But "the dynamism of the campaign will come up against the obstacle of hesitant and opposed to vaccination", two categories each estimated at 15% of the population, she continues.
It will therefore be "very difficult to obtain a vaccination coverage rate before the end of the summer which would ensure sufficient collective immunity to control the epidemic, i.e. 90% of the adult population or 80% of the total population (children included). ) ", considers the consultative body, which decides on questions of public health and medical ethics.
A "progressive" obligation
Judging that "such an obligation can only be introduced gradually", it recommends first of all making vaccination "mandatory" in a whole series of categories, starting with the essential professions (teachers, health professions, police and civil service in general, supply services for food, water, energy, cash and computer equipment).
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The academy considers that this obligation should also be applied to "professional activities involving contact with the public" (shops, restaurants, hotels, cultural and sports establishments), "before all activities involving travel or gatherings" (travel international, thermal cures, associative events), to students "before the start of the 2021 university year" and to blood donors.
She adds that "vaccination against Sars-CoV-2 in adolescents and children should be considered as soon as vaccine protocols are approved in these age groups", despite the fact that "Covid-19 is generally mild in young age ", because this extension is" necessary for the acquisition of collective immunity ". In France, vaccines protecting against 11 diseases are compulsory in infants.