Le Lamentin (France) (AFP)

Alex Maugée, 50, saw his cousin affected by Covid-19 the day before leaving for the hospital on a stretcher.

"It triggered a trigger in my head": today he came to be vaccinated, like other Martinicans challenged by the dramatic epidemic that is hitting the island.

"I had cases in my entourage, I did not think that it was going to be serious", testifies this security officer, while awaiting his bite at the vaccinodrome of the Palais des sports du Lamentin, near Fort-de-France.

"Two days ago, I lost an aunt" who died from the coronavirus, he says.

Previously, an uncle also died.

But "last night", the arrival of firefighters at his "very close cousin", "it triggers you something, I have not slept", he admits.

Alex explains that he has "poor health", and that his job as a security guard sometimes requires him to "separate people", which worries him in the midst of an epidemic.

"We are obliged" to be vaccinated, he estimates, while only 22% of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

A doctor speaks with a patient before giving a vaccination against Covid-19 in a vaccination center at the Palais des Sports in the town of Lamentin in Martinique on August 13, 2021 Lionel CHAMOISEAU AFP

"Today, people who are vaccinated all have someone dead, hospitalized or suffering in their entourage", analysis with AFP the chief doctor of the Territorial Fire and Rescue Service ( STIS), Ludovic Durand, in charge of the vaccinodrome.

"Until now, the Covid was a disease seen from afar. But there, we went from + I don't know anyone who has Covid + to + Uncle died and auntie is in reaction +".

However, if he noticed an increase in vaccinations with the speech of the President of the Republic on the health pass on July 12, then the announcement of a strict containment, "it is not the scramble" at the center vaccination, regrets Ludovic Durand, while Martinique has an incidence rate of nearly 1,200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

A patient waits for a mandatory period of time after receiving his first vaccine in a coronavirus vaccination center installed at the Palais des Sports in the town of Lamentin in Martinique on August 13, 2021 Lionel CHAMOISEAU AFP

The center has been doing an average of 1,000 vaccines per day in recent days, "against an average of 556 since the opening," he explains.

"A thrill," greeted Thursday the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, when he came.

- "I was waiting" -

In this Caribbean island of 400,000 inhabitants, "the craze for the vaccine is not enormous", laments the firefighter.

"We should be in line every day."

"It was not yet time, I was waiting, I was waiting, since I am in good health", explains Patrick Zénon, 58-year-old cleaning agent, to explain that he did not make up his mind until today. hui to be administered the vaccine, with his wife and his daughter.

Covid-19 in France: the West Indies hit hard Kenan AUGEARD AFP

"I hear a lot of hazards, it gives you pause for thought, we had to make a decision," he concedes.

And the reading of death notices on the radio - a specificity of the West Indies - has become "really long", he notes.

"Before, there were ten deaths a day, today it is multiplied by six, it makes you think".

"It's really fear that sets in", considers Maxence Toussay, a 66-year-old retiree in a floral dress: "When we see the situation in Martinique, we say to ourselves + We're badly off +".

"We have become aware of what is happening", she assures, lambasting "false information and social networks which disseminate so many true and not true things" that "the population does not know what to do."

She, who had already had her first dose and caught the Covid a month later - without symptoms - came for the second dose, "but I am told that I am already immune".

Some come to be vaccinated "backwards", like Yvette, 74, who chose the CHU vaccination center, but "does not believe" in the vaccine.

"I'm not convinced, when you hear the politicians, it casts doubt," she said.

But "I have a certain age, two children who have caught the Covid, I try to protect myself, in quotes".

Her fear: "Weren't there placebos in the vaccine batches?" She asks.

For André Cabié, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at the CHU, "we try every day to convince and fight against false information".

"If the vaccine hesitation remains as important as ever, there will be a fifth wave, a sixth wave and so on," he warns.

© 2021 AFP