Covid: calls for a 3rd dose “for all immediately” are multiplying – The HuffPost

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COVID – A third dose for all and immediately. This is what some members of the scientific community have been urging in recent weeks. The goal: to put a quick brake on the fifth wave and avoid drastic restrictions that some of our neighbors suffer.

Again this Sunday, November 21, Vittoria Colizza, research director at Inserm who is preparing new models, is in favor of injecting a third dose of vaccine for all right now. “We must not wait any longer, there is no longer any reason to prioritize such and such an age category! We no longer have a supply or administration problem as at the start of the campaign, ”she calls out in the columns of the JDD.

Friday, it was Frédéric Valletoux, president of the Hospital Federation of France (FHF) and Mayor Agir de Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne), who launched the same appeal on Franceinfo: “It is absolutely necessary to accelerate the third dose for those who are called upon to do so and we must also very quickly extend this booster dose to the general population”.

Dealing with “a dazzling start to the 5th wave”

This eagerness to extend the third dose to the entire population is related to the fifth wave that “starts off with a bang”, according to Gabriel Attal. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous this Sunday 21 on Europe 1 and CNews, the government spokesperson referred to “an increase in cases of almost 80% in one week”, “with 17,000 daily cases”. “We have elements that can both worry us and at the same time make us confident,” he continued.

It must be said that the situation in some neighboring countries is cause for concern. Austria has re-confined its population and made the vaccine compulsory for all. The Netherlands, the scene of violent riots, has reintroduced partial containment with a series of health restrictions and now plans to ban certain places to the unvaccinated. As for Germany, the government has decided to impose severe restrictions on unvaccinated and paved the way for compulsory vaccination for nursing staff.

“The ‘booster’ acts in prevention”

According to Vittoria Colizza, France has several tools “to avoid this happening”, ”starting with the third dose, the ‘booster’”. “From an epidemic point of view, there is an urgent need to exploit it, because this recall helps to ‘push’ protection against infection. Developed against the Wuhan strain, the vaccine remains very effective against severe forms after infection with the Delta variant, it was not won, ”she explains to the JDD.

“The ‘booster’ acts in prevention: it will raise the vaccine effectiveness against the infection so that a person exposed to the virus has a much lower probability of being infected. We need to reduce viral circulation in the population to also reduce hospitalizations. The reminder is the barrier measure which, coordinated with expanded vaccination coverage, will curb the epidemic, ”she urges.

In October, Pfizer reported the results of a clinical trial involving 10,000 people showing that a booster dose of the vaccine was 95.6% effective against symptomatic forms of the disease. Efficacy results for Moderna are still pending, but one study showed that a booster dose did increase antibody levels. For Pfizer-BioNTech, the dosage for the booster is the same (30 micrograms), while for Moderna, the booster is actually half a dose (50 micrograms versus 100 for the initial two injections).

Curb congestion in hospitals

For Frédéric Valletoux, the urgency also arises from the need to preserve hospitals which are already greatly weakened. “We see winter coming with some concern. The observation of a hospital under very strong tension is shared by all hospital staff. After two years of mobilization against Covid-19 when the hospital was already fragile before the epidemic, we have fewer staff on the front and greater tensions. Hospital workers will face it, but at what cost? There will undoubtedly still be significant deprogramming, which is not without repercussions in terms of public health ”, he warns on Franceinfo.

Emmanuel Macron did not rule out the possibility of making the entire population eligible for a third dose and conditioning the health pass there. “If it turns out that a third dose is effective and necessary for other audiences, obviously, we will integrate it into the logic of the past,” the president told Voix du Nord.

Following the opinion of the @HAS_sante, the vaccine booster against the Covid will be open to people aged 50 and over from the beginning of December as announced by the President of the Republic.
The extension of the recall to under 50s will be studied shortly.

– Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) November 19, 2021

For his part, the High Authority for Health (HAS) voted on Friday for an extension of the booster dose to over 40s, six months after the primary vaccination, the latest studies indeed suggesting a benefit for this age group.

“No emergency” at the 3rd dose for everyone, according to Delfraissy

But for Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the scientific council, there is however no urgency to apply the 3rd dose for all. Indeed, he recalls that the younger population was vaccinated later and that it is necessary to wait six months between the 2nd and the 3rd dose.

“I said, in September, on a personal basis, that we would go towards a third dose for all so I will not go back”, said Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the scientific council # le79interpic.twitter.com/fahVyX4no2

– France Inter (@franceinter) November 17, 2021

Gabriel Attal also indicated that a Sanitary Defense Council would be held at the top of the state next week.

See also on The HuffPost: When Olivier Véran rejected the 3rd dose for the health pass