Covid-19: start of the vaccination campaign in the EU scheduled for next Sunday
After the authorization of the distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on EU soil on Monday, December 21, a vast vaccination campaign will be able to start at the end of the week in a coordinated manner in the 27 countries of the Union.
© AP - David Goldman
Text by: RFI Follow
6 min
The appearance of a new variant of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom has caused panic around the world, with dozens of capitals canceling flights with the country, which finds itself isolated.
For its part, the French executive announced on Monday evening that it wanted to launch its national vaccination campaign next Sunday, like Germany and Spain, as part of European coordination.
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The first vaccines against Covid-19 will be administered on Sunday, December 27 in France, the first day of the launch in the European Union of this unprecedented campaign, announced Monday, December 21 Gabriel Attal, government spokesman , and Olivier Véran, Minister of Health.
“
Start of the French and European vaccination campaign on Sunday!
"After"
the first deliveries (...) this week
", tweeted the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, just after the favorable opinion of the European Medicines Agency to the vaccine developed by the American Pfizer and the German BioNTech.
“
Vaccination will start in the 27 EU countries on December 27, 28 and 29.
To all the skeptics, to all those who doubted it, Europe has shown that it is much more than a large market: a community of destiny,
”Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted after the green light.
Thank you @JeanCASTEX, the European immunization days will be a great moment of unity and hope. # EUvaccinationdays https://t.co/mLAR7PGYWg
- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 21, 2020
“
The Commission, the Member States and the company (BioNTech) are now working for a delivery of the first doses on December 26,
” the Commission said.
Deliveries will then continue in December and the coming months, reaching 200 million doses by September 2021.
After the Council of Ministers, and before
the green light this Monday evening, December 21, from the European Medicines Agency and then from the European Commission
for the marketing of the vaccine, government spokesman Gabriel Attal had confirmed that the campaign for vaccination would start with retirement homes, for staff and residents.
About a million people are affected by this first phase.
"
Very gradual onset
" of vaccination
"
Preparatory meetings for the launch of the vaccine campaign will be held throughout the week before a European launch scheduled for Sunday,
" he added, specifying that others were scheduled "
early next week
".
But it will be “
a very gradual start
,” Olivier Véran said on Europe1.
According to him, there is "
a priori
" no reason "
to think that the vaccines would be less effective
" against the new variant.
He did not rule out that this new variant, especially present in Great Britain, also “
circulates
” in France.
Emmanuel Macron, who has "
still symptoms
" of Covid-19, worried about a "
problematic mutation of the virus with a much more aggressive form
" which justifies, according to him, the suspension for 48 hours of all arrivals in origin of British soil decided the day before by Paris and several European countries.
"
It is an exceptional situation which led us to take this rapid decision and which should lead us to redouble our vigilance on the evolution
" of the virus, added the president, dressed in black and wearing a mask, from the official residence de La Lanterne, in Versailles, where he is still in isolation
after testing positive Thursday for Covid-19
.
Gabriel Attal specified at the end of the Council that the executive would ensure "
acute and permanent monitoring of the circulation of the virus
" and that a new meeting on the health situation was to be held "
at the beginning of next week
" around Of the president.
According to a government source, it should take the form of a Health Defense Council.
He specified that the state of health of Emmanuel Macron, who celebrates his 43 years in isolation at La Lanterne on Monday, was "
stable
", after the exceptional dissemination of statements by the Head of State during the Council of Ministers by videoconference.
The suspension of travel was announced on Sunday after an extraordinary Health Defense Council and comes in the wake of similar measures taken by Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg or the Ireland, while a mutation of the virus responsible for Covid, Sars-CoV-2, was detected across the Channel, considered by London as "
out of control
" on its territory.
But not at the global level, said the WHO on Monday.
Repatriation
"
We are giving ourselves the means, with the suspension of border crossings for 48 hours, to build a health protocol which should allow our compatriots who are now in Great Britain and who had planned to return to France to spend the holidays , to do it with new sanitary rules which are being discussed and being built,
”explained Gabriel Attal.
The European Union is due to try to harmonize the measures decided by member states to prevent arrivals from the UK on Tuesday, as border closures have given rise to scenes of chaos with passengers stranded at airports and airports. truck drivers stuck in UK.
The European stock markets unscrewed
Monday because of fears related to this change: at the close, the Parisian market gave up 2.43%.
Markets also plunged across Europe, from London to Frankfurt to Milan, and fell sharply in mid-session on Wall Street.
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