Some wonder if all the French who want it will be able to protect before January 15th.
«Continue to vaccinate, vaccinate, and vaccinate.”As Emmanuel Macron said, Friday, on the sidelines of his trip to the United Arab Emirates. To limit the spread of the delta variable and avoid overcrowding in hospitals, the government is counting on giving a booster injection to as many French people as possible as quickly as possible.
The campaign is open from 1He is September for vulnerable groups, reactivated with the decision to include the third dose from January 15 in the health card. The mark of 10 million people who received their third dose last Saturday has been crossed. And demand is not waning on Doctolib’s online platform, where an average of 450,000 appointments are booked per day, while other appointments are taken directly from pharmacists, city doctors, nurses or midwives. The phone rings all day long, Brigitte Bouzig, pharmacist at the Lagarde, attests. But we are well organized, and there are still a few places left in December.” Here, unused doses are collected at closing by the nurses who deliver them at home.
If 2.5 million appointments are still available by the end of January according to the Directorate General of Health, the deadlines will be lengthened, and some are questioning whether all French people who wish can be protected before January 15. Yesterday, 64,000 appointments were available within three days on Doctolib, and 143,000 appointments were available within seven days. Some regions seem to be better equipped than others: 5,400 meetings are given over a week in Occitanie (6 million inhabitants), compared to 43,800 in Ile-de-France (12 million inhabitants).
Seniors priority
The Ministry of Health confirms this nonetheless “impression (from a lack of slots, editor’s note) it’s fake”. Up to 400,000 places have been opened daily in recent days , Determines. There will be no shortage of doses, we have enough to vaccinate everyone.” Provided you do not deprive yourself of the Moderna vaccine, doses delivered late make up the majority of the stock. The Ministry announces a rebalancing of distribution: vials of Moderna are now primarily intended for vaccination centers, encouraging their use for those over thirty (especially the most vulnerable among them). The third dose can in fact be administered indifferently with one or the other RNA vaccine, regardless of the initial vaccination scheme, and with similar efficacy. “The challenge is not to choose a specific vaccine, but to get a booster dose as quickly as possible.”, the ministry insists, while the French seem to prefer the vaccine marketed by Pfizer.
The third-dose frenzy prompted the Health Department to return last Friday the skip-line number (0800730956) for people over 65, who have priority. About 10% of dates these days are reserved for this age group. At higher risk of severe Covid, those over 65 were vaccinated first, and their immunity drops sharply over time compared to younger people.
