Passengers wearing masks to protect themselves from Covid-19 upon their arrival at Heathrow Airport in London, January 15, 2021. -

DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP

  • According to a poll published by

    Le Parisien

    this Saturday, 62% of French people are in favor of compulsory vaccination for people wishing to take the plane to go abroad and 60% are to make it compulsory for visits in Ephad

  • This therefore amounts to validating the principle of a vaccination passport, which would certify that a person has been vaccinated against Covid-19 and would allow him to resume certain activities which are now prohibited.

  • “But this passport has no meaning to date, insists Jérôme Martin, of the Observatory for drug transparency.

    If only because we do not know, for the moment, whether the vaccines approved today make it possible to avoid contamination.

    "


"Vaccination passport", "health passport" or "green passport" ... Whatever your name, should you prepare to go out, soon, with a new document in your pocket?

This document would certify that a person has been vaccinated against Covid-19 and will then serve as a precious sesame to resume a slightly more normal life, being free to travel abroad, to move after 6 p.m., to go at the cinema, at the restaurant or at the gym.

At least that's the idea and it's catching on.

In the world already.

An American coalition bringing together IT companies - including the giant Microsoft - but also health institutions and NGOs, announced Thursday that it would work on a digital and paper version of such a document.

Quantas, an Australian airline, is also considering requiring a valid vaccination passport for its international travelers arriving in Australia.

French people less and less cautious?

Greece, for its part, called on the European Union on Tuesday to adopt a vaccination certificate within its borders, in order to give tourism a boost.

A request that was echoed favorably by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von Leyen.

And the French in all this?

Less and less cautious to believe the polls.

On January 3, 58% of French people refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a survey by Odoxa-Backbone consulting carried out for Franceinfo and

Le Figaro

.

62% of French people are now in favor of compulsory vaccination for people wishing to take the plane to go abroad and 60% to allow visits to vulnerable people in retirement homes or hospitals in only people vaccinated, according to a new survey, this time from Ifop for the company Lemon, carried out in partnership with Le Parisien and published on Saturday.

Which amounts to validating the principle of a vaccination passport.

"It doesn't make sense at the moment"

The French government is not wavering.

Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs, recalled this Sunday morning on France Info: “We are very reluctant.

"It is a debate that does not need to be and it would be shocking, while this vaccination campaign is still starting everywhere in Europe, if there are more important rights for some than for others. .

This is not our conception of protection and access to vaccines, ”he explains.

"The vaccine passport does not make sense for the moment," said Jérôme Martin, co-founder of the Observatory for drug transparency (OTMeds), a political organization which is therefore in line with the government.

“We must remember what vaccines are currently and what we know about them,” he continues.

For those approved today, we know that they reduce severe forms of infection.

On the other hand, we do not know for the moment whether they make it possible to avoid contamination.

In the current state of our knowledge, the vaccination passport cannot therefore be introduced.

Jérôme Martin adds ethical questions to this.

"We are not yet able to ensure rapid vaccination of the entire French population," he recalls.

I am, for example, a 46-year-old professor, without comorbidity, so that I could probably not be vaccinated before next June.

So I would be prevented from traveling when residents in Ephad, priority to be vaccinated, could?

"

A passport, a factor of inequalities at the global level?

This vaccination passport could also increase, on a global scale, inequalities between countries.

"At the end of December, Amnesty International and a coalition of organizations assessed that, as it stands, in 70 poor countries, only one in ten inhabitants will be able to be vaccinated by the end of the year", continues. he.

In contrast, rich countries, although they represent only 13% of the world population, “bought enough doses to immunize their entire population almost three times before the end of 2021, if all the vaccines that are currently the subject of clinical trials are approved, ”lamented the same coalition of organizations.

"Not only therefore, the inhabitants of poor countries will not be able to easily protect themselves from Covid-19 but, with this idea of ​​a vaccination passport, we would also prevent them from moving when others can", then summarizes Jérôme. Martin.

But if it may still seem premature in view of current knowledge, could the vaccine passport find a place in the armada of solutions to be implemented to counter this Covid-19 pandemic?

After all, the equivalent already exists for yellow fever, with the international certificate of vaccination issued to people who have been vaccinated against this disease and compulsory to travel to certain countries in Africa and South America.

"It is not the same thing to ask for a certificate for a product that has been validated, tested and whose effectiveness we know," says Jérôme Martin.

If we manage to have the same degree of certainty about Covid-19, no doubt the debate around the vaccine passport can be raised.

"

Focus everything on pedagogy?

One thing is certain, the Medicines Transparency Observatory will vote against.

"This passport will remain a coercive measure," explains Jérôme Martin.

However, from the experience we have had with other epidemics - HIV in particular - coercion is often ineffective, even counterproductive.

The risk, for example, with the vaccination passport, is that some people produce false certificates.

"

For the OTMeds, nothing beats education on vaccines with transparency as a prerequisite.

“This is what we have been asking for since March 5, when Emmanuel Macron announced public funding for research projects on these vaccines, Jérôme Martin despairs.

From that moment on, we demanded that there be transparency on test protocols, intermediate results, contracts signed with laboratories… Vaccine confidence is something that is built.

"

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