Faced with the seventh wave of Covid-19, France is currently banking on vaccination
In a test center near Nantes, June 23, 2022. REUTERS - STEPHANE MAHE
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Faced with the seventh wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, the government is banking on vaccination and “citizen responsibility”, and excludes at this stage the return of health measures such as the compulsory mask in transport.
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France plunged again at the beginning of summer in a new wave, carried by
new sub-variants
of the Omicron family, BA.4 and especially BA.5.
Consequence: Professor Alain Fischer, president of the Council of orientation of the vaccine strategy,
beats the recall of the vaccination
for the more than 60 years and the fragile people.
“
Despite the cumulative effect of injections and infections, the level of protection is no longer optimal.
Moreover, the vaccines remain safe: there are no more side effects during a fourth dose.
It's simple, the 8.5 million eligible French people who have not yet received it must go to their pharmacy or to their general practitioner
, "said the government's" Monsieur vaccines " in the Sunday newspaper.
“
The data shows that with a fourth dose the level of neutralizing antibodies rises to the same level as after the third.
Protection against severe forms is therefore restored to more than 90% for a certain number of months.
Frankly, a shot twice a year, it's not so terrible!
»,
“
Vaccination alone will not be enough
”
But for Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin, the vaccine alone is not enough to stem the epidemic.
“
Vaccination alone will not be enough
,” he warns.
It is necessary to associate the wearing of a mask in transport, in closed, poorly ventilated places to participate in the reduction of the risk of contamination.
And moreover, a policy of ventilation, aeration is necessary to complete the devices to be able to control the current wave.
»
Several voices in the medical community, including that of Alain Fischer, on a personal basis, or of the federation of public hospitals, plead for a return to the compulsory mask in transport.
But in government, we are calling for “
citizen responsibility
”.
For the time being, “
the idea is not to return to more restrictive measures
”, indicated Brigitte Bourguignon, who does not exclude other measures if necessary.
►Also read:
Faced with the return of Covid-19, France fears a less obvious vaccine recall
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France
Coronavirus
Health and medicine
Vaccines