Covid: a vaccine for people over 55, hospitals still under pressure - France 24

Paris (AFP)

With those over 55 authorized to be vaccinated, France is taking a new step in its vaccination campaign against Covid-19 on Monday, but too late to prevent the third epidemic wave from hitting hospitals even harder.

Everyone over 55, without any particular pathology or comorbid condition, can in theory make an appointment, with their doctor or in a pharmacy, for a shot of AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccine, of which France must receive a first delivery. of 200,000 doses this week.

But above all, it will be a question of disposing of stocks already available.

"Given the very limited supply volumes of AstraZeneca vaccine, the remote declaration portal will not be open to order (...) next week" for doctors and pharmacists, said the Directorate General of health in a Sunday evening message.

The other two vaccines (Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna) which use messenger RNA technology, will be open to people over 60 from Friday.

- "opportunity" -

"This is a good thing, but it is also a decision of expediency. There was AstraZeneca vaccine left on the arms which is a bit of a shame (so) all candidates to be vaccinated with AstraZeneca can do it," he said. nuanced Monday on Cnews, the president of the League against cancer, Axel Kahn.

Since March 19, France reserves the vaccine from the Anglo-Swedish laboratory for over 55s, after very rare but serious cases of coagulation disorders observed in younger patients.

As for the vaccine manufactured by Janssen, the European subsidiary of the American Johnson & Johnson, it was authorized in Europe, then in France, under a one-dose protocol.

"The American industrialist indicated that a single dose would suffice. I remain skeptical for the time being because I do not see why he would have succeeded in this feat unlike other vaccines", nevertheless declares the president of the Steering committee of the vaccine strategy, Alain Fischer, adding that "clinical studies are underway", in an interview Monday with Liberation.

The vaccination campaign is opening up to new categories, but the previous ones have not yet been full: if nearly 75% of nursing home residents have been vaccinated with two doses, the rate drops to 37.5% for 75-79 year olds (68% in first dose), 9% for 70-74 year olds (52% in first dose), 5% in 65-69 year olds (29% in first dose).

When the British find their terraces again, after a long confined winter, France still has to face a third and violent epidemic wave.

Last week, during the three days following the long Easter weekend, between 41,000 and 60,000 patients tested positive each day.

Since Monday it is possible to test yourself with self-tests available in theory in pharmacies, but a PCR test is necessary to confirm a possible positive result.

- "high plateau" -

The number of Covid-19 patients received in intensive care units continues to increase, to 5,838 on Sunday, forcing hospitals to deprogram less urgent care.

This level of overcrowding in intensive care units had not been reached for a year, during the first wave of the epidemic, and it now largely exceeds that of the second wave of autumn (4,900).

With a total of 98,778 dead since the start of the epidemic, the death toll is expected to cross 100,000 this week.

"If the contaminations come back down in France, it will be necessary to maintain the effort beyond the spring holidays", warned, Sunday, the epidemiologist Antoine Flahault in the JDD.

"Three weeks of vacation in April will probably not be enough to get back below the 5,000 daily case mark," he adds.

Emmanuel Macron has set for mid-May the reopening of the first terraces of bars and restaurants and cultural places, promising a strict sanitary protocol, but without setting any sanitary condition, such as a maximum number of contaminations.

"The major risk, with the current strategy, is to return to this high plateau which has rotten the lives of the French since December, above 10-15,000 cases per day. It would then be difficult to revive economic, cultural and life. sport, to open restaurants and bars, with traffic threatening at any time to rise again, "warned Antoine Flahault.

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