3rd dose of Covid vaccine: mandatory to keep your health pass? – Linternaute.com

3RD DOSE. Emmanuel Macron will he announce this Tuesday, November 9 in his speech new rules to encourage people over 65 to receive a 3rd dose of vaccine against Covid-19? What are the possible announcements, the new rules? We take stock.

[Mis à jour le 9 novembre 2021 à 18h36] Are we heading towards a mandatory third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine? Emmanuel Macron is expected at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 9, at which time the President of the Republic will address the French in a speech for the ninth time since the start of the epidemic. it should in particular evoke the theme of vaccination anti-Covid with possible announcements on the famous 3rd dose, the booster today intended for over 65s. This is optional for the time being and should remain so, but the government, part of which met this Tuesday morning in the health defense council, could have decided for measures to encourage vaccination.

The rumor has already swelled to the point that the Doctolib site, allowing to reserve a vaccination slot, was attacked again Monday, November 8, recording a peak in attendance. On the web, Internet users are also publishing source code extracts from the Tous Anti-Covid site showing that lines vaccineBoosterAge: 65 “and” vaccineBoosterDelayMax: 213 “were recently added. Questioned on Tuesday by the newspaper Le Parisien, the government has reacted by the voice of a spokesperson for the Secretary of State for digital, Cédric O. “For technology to follow decisions, we must anticipate a little bit”, we assure before specifying: “This He has been involved in this work for a while and that in no way prejudges the announcements that will be made this evening. ”Answer at 8 pm.

A period of one month?

This rumor comes a few hours after government spokesman Gabriel Attal himself admitted that a lead was “on the table”, that of linking the obtaining and the validity of the health pass the administration of a 3rd dose of vaccine for those over 65 years of age. However, since the start of the health crisis, each presidential speech has been accompanied by strong decisions and new announcements: successive confinements, travel certificates, curfews or even the establishment of the health pass were notably unveiled.

Can he make this 3rd dose compulsory for all that? No according to some experts, including the Academy of Medicine opposed to the third dose being a condition for obtaining the health pass. According to a government source cited by The voice of the North, one of the options in the face of these controversies could be to grant a period of one month to be injected a booster before the health pass comprising only two doses of vaccines is deactivated. According to this same source, the conditioning of the health pass to the booster dose poses another problem, of a technical nature this time, because the pass “recognizes your age, but not your diabetes”.

Is generalization of the 3rd dose recommended by experts?

Experts and government officials also seem to be moving in this direction. This Tuesday, November 9, the infectious disease specialist and head of the infectious diseases department at Saint-Antoine Hospital (AP-HP, Paris) Karine Lacombe, guest of France Inter, affirmed: “It is necessary to generalize the third dose of vaccine to everyone”. For her, in the presidential address tonight, “what would be important would be to have an important gesture in favor of the third dose”. No doubt for the infectious disease specialist, in view of the “increase throughout France, but really with much less importance than the number of contaminations [qui] is a positive effect of vaccination, but which is starting to run out of steam “:” It should be generalized to everyone, in all categories of the population, six months after the second dose. “For Karine Lacombe, caregivers and experts call for the generalization of the booster dose of the anti-Covid vaccine. In addition, a few days ago, it was the mandatory mask that was back in schools in 40 departments. The World Health Organization also announced Thursday November 4 that she now feared a new wave of deaths, of at least “half a million by February” 2022. As a reminder: out of approximately 7.7 million eligible French people, only 3.4 were made vaccinate for the third time.

3rd dose of vaccine: not compulsory, but recommendations

On his site, the Ministry of Health and Solidarity details its recommendations concerning the booster dose against Covid-19. People who have received the Janssen vaccine should receive the booster dose 4 weeks after the last injection of the initial regimen. Should receive the booster dose six months after the last injection of the initial regimen:

Residents of EHPADs, USLDs and independent residences;
People over 65 living at home;
People at very high risk of severe form;
People with comorbidity (s);
People with severe immunosuppression. It should be noted that for this category, the administration of the booster dose can be carried out within a period of less than 6 months (but at least 3 months), since it is judged by the medical team that it would improve the immune response.
Health professionals;
All employees in the health sector and the medico-social sector;
Home helpers working with vulnerable people;
Medical transport professionals, as well as firefighters;
People around the immunocompromised, only in adults over 18 years old.

Regarding the places where the booster doses are injected, the Ministry of Health and Solidarity distinguishes two categories. Residents in an institution for the elderly can have their booster dose inoculated at home, at their attending physician (general practitioner or specialist), in the departments where you are followed, in a pharmacy, in a nursing or midwifery office. , at their dental surgeon or in a medical biology laboratory. The rest of the public eligible for the booster dose, if they do not reside in an establishment for the elderly, can be vaccinated at a vaccination center, at their general practitioner (general practitioner or specialist), at their occupational doctor, at a pharmacy. , in a nursing or midwifery practice, in the hospital services where he is followed, in his dental surgeon or in a medical biology laboratory. In the second case, some of these health professionals may agree to come to your home to administer this vaccination. In addition, all the information on the vaccination locations are available on the website. Santé.fr. Why is a booster dose recommended? In order to boost immunity and guarantee the highest level of protection against Covid-19.

3rd dose of vaccine: for whom?

As pointed out the ministry of health and solidarity, the booster dose concerns people most at risk of developing a severe form of Covid-19, namely:

Residents of EHPADs, USLDs (long-term care units) and independent residences;
People 65 years of age and over;
People at very high risk of severe form, from 12 years old;
People with comorbidity (s), from 12 years old;
Severely immunocompromised people, from 12 years old;
Health professionals;
All employees in the health sector and the medico-social sector;
All employees in the medical transport sector;
Home helpers working with vulnerable people;
Firefighters;
People around the immunocompromised, only in adults over 18 years old.

As a reminder, immunocompromised people are people:

who have received an organ or hematopoietic stem cell transplant
under lymphopenic chemotherapy
treated with strong immunosuppressive drugs, such as antimetabolites (cellcept, myfortic, mycophenolate mofetil, imurel, azathioprine) and AntiCD20 (rituximab: Mabthera, Rixathon, Truxima)
chronic dialysis after advice from their attending physician who will decide on the need for appropriate examinations;
on a case-by-case basis, people on immunosuppressants not falling within the above-mentioned categories or with primary immunodeficiency.
(since June 18) with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or certain types of lymphoma treated with antiCD20

3rd dose of vaccine and health pass

For the moment, the health pass is not – yet – conditioned on the booster dose. Emmanuel Macron’s speech this Tuesday, November 9 at 8 p.m. could be a game-changer. Indeed, according to Franceinfo, the President of the Republic could announce that a third dose is necessary to maintain the validity of the health pass only among the over 65s among the audiences concerned today – people suffering from comorbidities would not be concerned. , so as not to link deprivation of liberty to pathologies. The third dose would not, according to Franceinfo, be made compulsory for caregivers either. According to La Voix du Nord, a period of one month would possibly be granted to over 65s before their health pass is invalidated for lack of a third dose.

In anticipation of a potential obligation of the 3rd dose, many French people have made an appointment to be injected with a vaccine booster in the days preceding the presidential announcement. Thus, Doctolib noted Monday, November 8 a “new record day with 98,000 French people having made their vaccination booster appointment” and “six days of waiting on average to have their booster dose” now.

Moderna and 3rd dose

At first, the Haute Autorité de Santé had “advised against” the use of Moderna vaccine for the booster dose. To justify this decision, the HAS relied on a Scandinavian study highlighting the risk of myocarditis for people under 30 years old. “The announcements from various health authorities have highlighted the unknowns that remain on the dose and the target population for the recall by Spikevax (Moderna vaccine, Editor’s note) and justify waiting for the European body to provide the details expected in the context of the marketing authorization under examination “.

After study, the Moderna vaccine finally received the approval of the EMA. “Data showed that a third dose of Spikevax given six to eight months after the second dose resulted in increased antibody levels in adults with declining antibody levels,” said the European Medicines Agency. (EMA) in a communicated.