The health pass becomes a vaccination pass this Monday, after the validation of the Constitutional Council on Friday.
French people over 16 will have to present a vaccination certificate or a positive test less than six months old to enter many places.
Alain Fischer, president of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council, answers questions from
20 Minutes
on the interest of such a pass and on the hope of a next drop in contamination.
After weeks of fiery debates in Parliament and the validation of the Constitutional Council, it is this Monday that the vaccine pass comes into force. It will therefore be necessary, to board a TGV, enter a museum or have a drink, present either a vaccination certificate with complete vaccination schedule (complete primary vaccination and booster dose if the last injection is more than seven months old), or a positive Covid-19 PCR or antigen test dating back at least 11 days and less than 6 months for all over 16s.
And yet, the French see the hope that this wave will soon be behind us... even that it will be the last.
To understand the interest of such a modification and to assess whether the idea of an end to the pandemic is realistic,
20 Minutes
interviewed the immunologist Alain Fischer, who advises the government on the vaccine strategy.
The health pass is replaced this Monday with a vaccination pass.
What is the point ?
It is a logical adaptation of a pass that has demonstrated its effectiveness.
According to a serious study, the health pass convinced 13% of French adults to get vaccinated.
Moreover, we have seen it in the vaccination figures: in June, the curve flattens;
on July 12, announcement of the health pass, it starts again.
This evolution is justified, the maintenance of a pass too.
De facto, it is a strong incentive for vaccination and recall.
Which makes sense in the context of the much more transmissible Omicron variant with extremely high viral circulation.
And we know that someone who tests negative today could test positive tomorrow.
On multiple occasions, Emmanuel Macron had assured that there would be no obligation to vaccinate.
But isn't this vaccination pass a disguised obligation?
There is already a vaccination obligation for health professionals.
The objective is to protect them, to protect the health system and to reduce the risk of a caregiver contaminating a patient.
Compulsory vaccination is not a dirty word.
Remember that eleven vaccines are compulsory for infants and in the end, this did not arouse strong opposition.
It is a possible weapon, is it useful?
I have strong doubts.
It would be ethically conceivable, but practically, it would be unlikely to bring much and would risk triggering hostilities.
Who is not yet vaccinated?
Not necessarily people in the ideology, but at a distance from the health system.
Even if there is a hard core of antivax.
You talk about hostility, but doesn't this vaccination pass risk excluding, tensing up, isolating unvaccinated people?
Since the health pass was implemented, there have been some protests against it, but it has remained quite limited.
Today, 92% of people over 12 have received at least one dose, and a large majority of French people were immediately convinced.
We now know that vaccines effectively protect against severe forms of Covid-19, but not against transmission.
How would this vaccine pass prevent a new wave?
The more the wave of contamination is spread out, the less the pressure is on the hospital.
This is why we must use all the measures that make it possible to limit the health burden of the current wave: vaccination, reminder and barrier gestures.
Some may have the impression of a tour de force out of time: Omicron causes fewer serious cases, the Minister of Health evokes the possibility that this wave will be the last, a timetable for the lifting of restrictions has just been unveiled…
We currently have 2,500 new hospitalizations, 286 critical care admissions and 230 deaths per day. We are not yet at the end of the epidemic, which is also serious. Omicron is less severe, but there are so many cases! On the dynamics, according to the models and given the slight drops in the first regions affected, Ile-de-France and Corsica, we are perhaps at the very beginning of the decline. But we have to pass this course. We still have 21 million adults who haven't done their recall. However, the advantage is that it provides 90% protection against Omicron and that this protection is active seven days after the injection. All French people should look at the curves of Guillaume Rozier on Vaximpact to measure the importance of the reminder.
“The pass could be suspended if the epidemic and especially hospital pressure were to be reduced sharply and durably”, explained Jean Castex Thursday evening.
But that remains unclear.
Does the law provide specific conditions for removing the vaccination pass?
If it is no longer useful, it will have to disappear.
Today, this is not the case.
But of course we have the goal of making life easier for everyone.
Britain decided to lift all restrictions last Wednesday.
Spain chooses to consider Covid-19 as a flu.
Are we about to see the end of the tunnel also in France?
We are not facing the flu!
Great Britain is ahead of us: it has an incidence rate of 900 per 100,000 inhabitants, when we are at 3,000.
Today [January 21], the political choice is vaccination and respect for barrier gestures.
In the long term, it is possible to envisage reducing the various protective measures.
But we are not out of the woods yet...
The latest advice from the Scientific Council suggests an improvement for mid-March.
Do you believe it?
I am not a modeller, but I read the same projections as the Council and it seems plausible.
The more vaccinations and induced immunities there are, the fewer infectable people there will be, so logically, the contaminations fall.
The fact remains that 500,000 people over the age of 80 have not received any dose and this figure is not falling, while primary vaccinations have increased since the announcement of the vaccination pass.
However, these are the people who are most at risk of going to intensive care.
How to explain this failure?
It goes down a bit.
We would be more around 470,000.
But obviously, it is very difficult to reach these people, despite the efforts made by town halls, health insurance, doctors… This tells us something about the isolation of certain elderly people.
I'm not sure we have many more resources available.
Second concern: the vaccination of children is slipping.
Why ?
There are practical reasons. On the side of vaccinators, first, who today are general practitioners and pediatricians in town, doctors in certain vaccination and maternal and child protection centers (PMI). Pediatricians are reluctant for two reasons: it is not easy to have ten children to be vaccinated on the same day. In addition, children must be accompanied by a parent, so appointments are concentrated on Wednesdays and weekends. First aid workers, nurses, firefighters who vaccinate in the center, after a short training to know how to adapt to the youngest, should be able to vaccinate them. As well as some pharmacists.
Second subject: the reluctance of health professionals and parents. We must continue to explain the validity of this vaccination. It is relevant, effective and safe. Why relevant? We are in the midst of an epidemic phase and children are the most infected age group: 5% are infected per week. Then this vaccine is effective. It avoids serious forms in children. Especially since the hospitalizations of the little ones are increasing.
Finally, and this is a point on which I want to insist: this vaccination is safe.
We have very solid data from the United States, where pediatric vaccination began in early November.
The risk of myocarditis is much lower in children than in adolescents and adults.
This residual risk is infinitely lower than the risk of serious cases of Covid-19.
Spanish and German children have better coverage: between 20 and 25%, whereas we are at 3% or 4%.
Too bad it's going so slowly...
Some are starting to talk about a fourth dose in France…
Only for immunocompromised people, and it is justified.
Only Israel has decided to set up a fourth dose for caregivers and those over 60.
There are no elements to do so in France.
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