Delta variant in France: accelerating vaccination to stop the spread

Published on : 06/24/2021 – 08:02

Even if several studies attest to the effectiveness of vaccines against this new form of Covid-19, faced with the speed of spread of the Delta variant, a race against time is engaged: particularly contagious, it should represent 90% of new cases of Covid-19 in the European Union by the end of August, alerted the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Wednesday, June 23.

In France, this variant – initially called the “Indian” variant – represents between 9 and 10% of contaminations, or even 12 to 13% in Île-de-France. Its progression is so rapid and that this variant is now responsible for 70% of the positive cases detected in the Landes, said Gabriel Attal, the spokesperson for the French government, Wednesday after the Council of Ministers.

Appeared in India, the Delta variant has spread across the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). However, it turns out to be much more contagious than the other variants in circulation, themselves already more transmissible than the initial strain.

Effectiveness of Delta Vaccines

“The good news is that with two doses of anti-Covid vaccines, we are well protected against this Delta variant”, reassures Gérard Dubois, professor of public health and member of the Academy of Medicine, contacted by France. 24. The Covid-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the Pfizer-BioNTech alliance remain effective against the Delta variant, according to data published Monday in The Lancet by the Scottish authorities. Encouraging findings, confirmed by a study from the University of Oxford published Wednesday. Two weeks after the second dose, the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine would be 88% effective against the symptomatic form of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant – the performance of AstraZeneca is evaluated at 66%.

“The bad news is that we are far from being enough to be vaccinated in France”. Indeed, since the start of the vaccination campaign, only a quarter of the population – and 31.8% of adults – received two shots of the vaccine. “This is not enough”, judge Professor Dubois. This concern is all the more legitimate given that some doctors are worried about the possibility of a marked slowdown in vaccination this summer. “With the original strain of Covid-19, that would have been enough to stop the epidemic, but this Delta variant is much more contagious. 70 to 90% of the population should be protected, that is to say they have antibodies against Covid-19, either after having received two doses of vaccines, or with one dose for people who have already contracted Covid-19 ”.

Vaccinate as soon as possible

Will the Delta variant of Covid-19 spoil the start of the school year? “We must not wait until the end of the holidays”, warns Professor Dubois. “The vaccinodromes are emptying at the very moment when they should be filled.” For the researcher, it is necessary to be “insistent” on vaccination, “to keep a strong message ”and“ use the doses available as quickly as possible on the largest possible population ”.

In France, faced with the rapid progression of the Delta variant, the authorities have decided to reduce to three weeks, from June 16, the difference between the two doses of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines – against a minimum of five weeks previously.

To those who believe that the health measures were hastily relaxed, Gérard Dubois replies that “the lifting of the health restriction measures is legitimate because we are in a favorable situation, so we can afford it”. While wearing a mask is no longer mandatory outside and the curfew was lifted on Sunday, health indicators continue to improve. Nationally, the incidence rate fell to 24 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a week, a proportion below half of the alert threshold. The positivity rate of virological tests is less than 1% and the reproduction rate of the virus (called “R” or “R0” by researchers and reflecting the average number of people infected by a case) is established at 0.64.

“Go to” the public away from vaccination

For Professor Dubois, one of the solutions is to “go towards”. “Vaccinodromes remain useful but we have to ‘reach out’ to the public reluctant to or far from vaccination”. The idea being to seek people as close as possible to their homes, like the initiative launched on June 11 by the University Hospital of Amiens – this one has transformed a bus from the very popular local football club into a mobile vaccination center. The vehicle has been traveling the streets of the Picardy capital for several weeks and offers a vaccination without appointment. Some 300 doses of Pfizer are available there each day.

Elsewhere, in Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the most affected department, an improvised vaccination center in a very popular shopping center in Rosny-sous-Bois offers, since June 19, to vaccinate customers without an appointment. An action that makes sense in a department where less than a third of the inhabitants have received a first injection of vaccine – against 45% nationally, according to the latest data available from the Health Insurance.

Avoid the emergence of new variants

“There are still 5 million over 55 years to be vaccinated in France, while it is in this age group that the risk of death from Covid-19 is high,” notes Professor Dubois. “People at high risk [avec des comorbidités], they too, are not sufficiently vaccinated. They are only 65% ​​to have received the vaccine, whereas they should run to be vaccinated ”, he regrets. “The risk of being vaccinated is 100 times lower than that of taking your car to go to the vaccination center”, estimates the professor of public health.

Beyond the Delta variant alone, forming this “vaccine block”, according to the image used by the President of the French Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy, has a second objective: to prevent the emergence of other variants within populations. being only partially protected, if at all. Because the prospect feared by scientists is the appearance of variants that are much more resistant to vaccines.

For its part, the government does not rule out taking additional restrictive measures in the departments where the dynamic of progression of the Delta variant is strong – it could be, for example, to lower the attendance gauges in certain places. public. “We remain vigilant and we are staying the course,” assured Gabriel Attal. “If the national lights are (…) green, we absolutely cannot grill any fire, vigilance remains absolute” in the face of “several points of attention” in Guyana, in the Landes and in the Bas-Rhin, a he declared at the end of the Council of Ministers.

With AFP