The vaccination strategy is being organized, but the reluctance of part of the French population remains.
Moderna files marketing authorizations in Europe and the United States, while the High Authority for Health publishes its recommendations for vaccination.
But 59% of French people say they do not intend to "get vaccinated when it becomes possible", according to an Ifop poll for Le JDD.
“It is not irrational to have a certain prudence”, answers the epidemiologist Antoine Flahault, interviewed by France 24. The one who is also director of the Institute of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva explains that an “effective” vaccination campaign, above all, “would eliminate mortality and hospitalization in intensive care”.
What are the challenges of the upcoming vaccination campaign in France?
Antoine Flahault:
The challenge for France, for the whole of Europe and for the world, is to vaccinate as a priority people at very high risk of mortality and severe complications of this disease, a segment of the order of 20% of the world's population.
As we do not benefit from a widely abundant vaccine a priori, we will have to have a strategy that will not be called a “blocking” - that is to say a group immunity to block the epidemic - but more a protection policy for people at risk of complications and mortality over a period which may last a few months.
How to explain that a large part of the French population does not wish to be vaccinated for the moment?
France is no exception.
All countries are reluctant to vaccinate, this is a concern for most public health authorities.
Regarding this reluctance, they can be understood for several reasons.
The first two vaccines that will probably be on the market (Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, Editor's note) are messenger RNAs, completely new vaccines in the pharmacopoeia.
We are therefore in maximum innovation, and it is not irrational to have a certain caution in the face of this and to want to wait until the vaccine has been proven, not so much in terms of effectiveness - the trials were there. for that - but rather in terms of risks.
Vaccines may prove to be different in millions of people in use than what has been shown to us in trials on tens of thousands of people.
Age is also to be taken into account: people who are not at risk of severe complications or death from Covid-19 will certainly have a greater requirement on the benefit-risk ratio of these vaccines than those over 70 years old, who will find relief, a big change in their life after vaccination.
What percentage of vaccination of the population will it be necessary to reach for this campaign to be effective despite reluctance?
It is less about the percentage of people vaccinated than about the target.
An effective campaign would eliminate mortality and hospitalization in intensive care of the elderly, targeted as a priority for vaccination.
Afterwards, in the world, we did not choose a policy of “blocking” the epidemic which would have consisted in vaccinating rather young segments of the population at more than 60%.
It is recommended, for the moment, to vaccinate only the vulnerable segments of the population vis-à-vis this disease and possibly the health professionals particularly exposed.
It is also possible - and seroprevalence studies could show it - that a part of the population, especially young people, is naturally immune today against SARS-CoV-2 and that it cooperates with the part which would have a vaccine immunity to limit the further spread and spread of Covid-19.
The build-up of these two immunities could help curb the virus.
When will we see a return to normal or, in any case, a life similar to 2019?
This can be rapid (in the fall of 2021 in the event of a broad vaccination, according to epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, NDLR).
If we are able to quickly vaccinate the elderly and people at risk, with co-morbidities, then we can radically change the prognosis of Covid-19 and make it a very benign respiratory disease.
If the vaccination campaign allows this, then we will quickly get rid of the problem.
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