And Gabriel Attal, a government spokesman, announced on Sunday that the executive authority hopes to adopt the vaccine corridor, which will replace the health card, by the end of next January, to enter into force “immediately”.
LCI.
The Executive wants the bill converting a health permit into a vaccine permit, a “quasi-confinement” of the non-vaccinated, “to be finally approved and issued before the end of January so that it can enter into force in the aftermath.” Government spokesperson. Parliament is due to begin consideration of the measure on January 10.
A “race against time” in the face of the fifth wave of Covid-19
The executive branch does not hide its desire to pressure the unvaccinated in a “race against time” in the face of the fifth wave of Covid-19 and the arrival of the alternative Omicron in France. Resuscitation services, where the number of Covid-19 patients began to rise again at the end of November, are approaching 3,000, while infections have exceeded 50,000 per day over the course of a week, according to figures published by Public Health France on Sunday.
If the executive wants to avoid new containment measures like in the Netherlands, Prime Minister Jan Kastix announced several new measures on Friday, including converting a health card into a vaccination card.
Concretely, to enter the places subject to this pass (restaurants, cultural venues, entertainment, etc.), a negative test will not be sufficient: it will necessarily be necessary to have been vaccinated (or cured of Covid) and to have received a reminder dose.
16,000 appointments for the first injection on Saturday
“This weekend,” or since this announcement, “we have seen an increase in the dates scheduled for the first injection,” Gabriel Attal welcomed, citing the 16,000 appointments for the initial vaccination made on Saturday. He said that there are still about 5 million eligible French people who have not received any injections.
“They have to go and convince again, by taking action, as we do with the vaccination card but also using pedagogy,” he added.
After Labor Minister Elizabeth Bourne receives the social partners on Monday, it will be Prime Minister Jan Castex’s turn on Tuesday to receive parliamentary blocs to discuss future areas for the application of the health permit, Gabriel Attal said.
He added that “representatives of employers, employees and unions will be able to communicate their suggestions, doubts and criticisms to the government, as consultations will take place tomorrow” with Elizabeth Bourne.
“There is then a hypothesis, and a possibility, to extend the card to other workplaces, but it is not today in our work scenario,” he said, referring to the upcoming “parliamentary debate.” The text is due to reach parliament on January 5, and already promises new heated discussions with the opposition, some against the past.
He stressed that “if we are to go in this direction” to expand into new places, parliamentarians “will define the perimeter: who is interested and who will control it.”
Same scope of health permit
“Right now, the basis of the business is really the perimeter we know of the health corridor, that is, restaurants, bars, places of culture, trade fairs, fairs and large gatherings,” he said.
He explained that neither daily transportation nor shopping malls are today part of this “business base”, but “there are possibilities to expand it to areas that do not require it today.”
According to French public health figures on Sunday, 52.5 million people have received at least one injection, or roughly 78% of the total population, and 51.4 now have a full vaccination schedule.