France, in the wake of Germany, decided on Monday to suspend vaccination with AstraZeneca serum.

For our editorialist Nicolas Beytout, this decision, "one of the worst episodes in the fight against Covid", illustrates "a total loss of control over public opinion carried away by its emotions."

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 In many European countries, including France, injections of the AstraZenaca vaccine have been suspended following a few serious cases of thrombosis.

For Nicolas Beytout, this is the consequence of a "huge wave of emotion transported by the media and amplified by social networks".

For the columnist, this "emotional democracy confiscates power from politics to entrust it to that part of the brain which does not think but reacts".

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While waiting for the "new decisions" promised by Emmanuel Macron, nothing is still known about the intentions of the European Medicines Agency concerning the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Everyone (public opinion, political leaders, health authorities) is suspended from this opinion.

For a year now, we have become accustomed to talking about the waves of the epidemic (the first, the second, perhaps the third today).

Well, the AstraZeneca vaccine affair is not a wave but a gigantic tidal wave that has just swept away everything in its path: the strategy to fight against Covid, the logistics of vaccination, and the certainties of vaccine advocates.

A tsunami that left no room for reflection

We are not the only ones in this situation: Germany, after other European countries, had preceded the French decision which, from then on became inevitable.

All these European countries have yielded to the tidal wave, all bear the responsibility for what will remain as one of the worst episodes of this year in the fight against Covid.

And Germany maybe more than others.

This beautiful mechanism that was our envy (masks, respirators, the vaccination plan), this German-style organization has stalled.

The country gave in as, hours earlier, Berlin claimed the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe.

And what explains this turnaround, and especially its brutality, its suddenness, is the emotion.

A huge wave of emotion transported by the media and amplified by social networks, a wave that grew as it crossed each country, until it became irresistible.

A tsunami which, on a subject as fragile and sensitive as health, swept away everything, left no room for reflection.

It was necessary to act and react quickly, under the pressure of immediacy, under the dictatorship of emotion.

Emotional democracy is sweeping through us

We knew citizen democracy, participatory democracy (with its worrying gropings), here is where emotional democracy is sweeping in us, the one which confiscates power from politics and entrusts it to that part of the brain which does not think but reacts.

No need, in this context, to try to weigh the number of deaths that would be caused by the cessation of vaccination against the few victims of side effects of the vaccine.

Fear sells well on social media.

Terrible observation of a total loss of control over a public opinion carried away by its emotions.

Not all countries gave in.

England continues to vaccinate hard with AstraZeneca.

Probably because this country, like the United States, has a culture of risk, not that of fear or the precautionary principle.

For once, these democracies were more mature than ours.