With the current fifth wave of Covid-19 and the Omicron variant, which threatens to supplant the Delta variant for contaminations early next year, the question of compulsory vaccination arises in several European states.

Three countries have so far decided to take this path, starting with Austria.

Its new chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, found on November 19 that "despite months of persuasive work, we have not been able to convince enough people to be vaccinated (66% of the population had a full vaccination schedule). in mid-November, Editor's note) ".

And faced with this observation, "sustainably increasing the vaccination rate is the only way out of this vicious circle," he said.

As a result, Austria intends to adopt a bill making vaccination compulsory as of February 1, 2022 and providing for fines of up to 7,200 euros for people who refuse vaccination despite everything.

Germany, where more than 10 million people are not vaccinated, has also decided to use this political measure: a bill will be tabled in the Bundestag by the end of the year, with an implementation compulsory vaccination hoped for in February-March 2022. The new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he was personally in favor of this measure on 1 December - where there too financial sanctions would be provided for those recalcitrant to vaccination.

Greece, meanwhile, announced on November 30 that vaccination would become compulsory for people aged 60 and over from January 16, under penalty of a fine of 100 euros per month until this. be the case.

"This is the price to pay for health," said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, while half a million Greeks targeted by the measure have not yet been vaccinated.

To these three countries are added the remarks made on December 1 by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission: she considered that on the subject of compulsory vaccination it was "appropriate and reasonable to have this discussion now" , clarifying that this was a "personal position" and that this decision rested with the Member States of the EU.

Compulsory vaccination to "drastically reduce the circulation" of Covid-19?

Even if he said "understand" that "some countries may ask the question", the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, declared on December 1 that France has "not made the choice" of compulsory vaccination .

"Who says obligation says control and sanction" and the "feasibility" of an obligation "is not obvious", he also specified, while 75% of the French population had a complete vaccination schedule at the beginning of December - a figure still too low for a possible collective immunity, theoretically estimated at 85% of people protected from the effects of the Delta variant.

But France partly made vaccination compulsory, last September, for professionals in hospitals and retirement homes, firefighters, some soldiers as well as for professionals and volunteers working with the elderly - including at home.

Extending this obligation to the entire population could, however, make it possible to "drastically reduce the circulation of the virus", estimates epidemiologist Catherine Hill, contacted by France 24. "Unvaccinated people are much more susceptible than vaccinated people to catch the Covid-19 ", she adds. A finding that was also established by DREES, a directorate of the French central public administration, on December 3: "The number of events linked to Covid-19 (positive tests, hospitalizations, deaths) is much greater for people unvaccinated than for vaccines of comparable population size. "

The executive has for several months made the health pass the pivot of its anti-Covid-19 strategy to reduce the circulation of the virus but this is "not enough", according to Catherine Hill, who recalls that on the 2 December "5,700,000 people aged 12 and over are not vaccinated" in France. "If people who are not vaccinated at all can no longer go to work or take transport," she says, "then they will have to be vaccinated."

Applying compulsory vaccination in addition to the health pass "will annoy everyone for not much", estimates off another epidemiologist contacted by France 24. "People who are not vaccinated represent a very small percentage of the French population and we will not be able to catch them. It is not compulsory vaccination that will change the direction of the epidemic. "

There remains a health problem among unvaccinated people: people aged 60 and over, who are mostly the most exposed to severe forms of Covid-19. In France, 86.6% of this age group was fully vaccinated by December 3, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. This puts the country in an average position among the 27 EU countries, far behind the podium with Ireland (100%), Portugal (99.7%) and Denmark (99.1%).

"We did not try to vaccinate people at home in a systematic way: there are a lot of elderly people who have not been vaccinated because they are not mobile, so there is a serious problem", explains Catherine Hill.

The other epidemiologist contacted by France 24 also agrees with this: "What has not yet been done enough is to seek out the elderly and facilitate their vaccination", he believes, before concluding: "After that, if someone in their 70s finally wants to stay in their home without being vaccinated, what can we do?"

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