Covid-19: rush on vaccination appointments after Macron’s announcements

Published on : 07/13/2021 – 07:39

After Emmanuel Macron’s announcements, Monday, July 12, hundreds of thousands of people rushed to make an appointment to receive a first injection of the Covid-19 vaccine. The Head of State has decided to impose the health pass at the entrance to most public places and made vaccination compulsory for caregivers and those in contact with vulnerable people, sanctions to the key.

“You are hundreds of thousands to have booked a vaccination appointment tonight,” noted the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, on Twitter. “That’s good, we have vaccines, centers open everywhere and tens of thousands of caregivers, firefighters, community officials who are waiting for you,” he assured.

926 000 appointment made on the Doctolib platform

“Monday, 926,000 French people made an appointment on Doctolib to be vaccinated (1st dose). An absolute record,” announced Tuesday morning the online appointment platform Doctolib.

This result stems from the pressure put by the President of the Republic on the unvaccinated to avoid a new wave of Covid-19 while the virus is on the rise again in all territories with the Delta variant.

“The more we vaccinate, the less space we will leave for the virus” and “it is therefore a new speed race which is engaged”, explained Emmanuel Macron during his televised address Monday evening.

The health pass in places of culture, restaurants, bars …

Nine months before the presidential election, he announced several radical measures to prevent a fourth wave of patients in hospitals. The preferred tool is the health pass (proof of vaccine or a negative PCR test), the use of which will be gradually extended in the coming weeks. From July 21, it will be necessary to enter “places of leisure and culture” such as cinemas.

From the beginning of August, the health pass will become compulsory to enter cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, including for staff, but also on planes, trains or long-distance coaches, as well as for medical establishments.

This pass is already in effect for venues hosting more than 1,000 people, including stadiums and nightclubs accommodating more than 50 people.

In the fall, “comfort” PCR tests will be chargeable, except for medical prescription, whereas they are currently free, announced Emmanuel Macron during this 8^e televised address since the start of the crisis.

Finally, as many experts and politicians have demanded, vaccination will become compulsory for nursing and non-nursing staff in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and retirement homes, professionals and volunteers working with the elderly, including at home, as well as firefighters or paramedics.

In total, just over 4 million people are affected, of which 1.5 are not vaccinated, said government spokesman Gabriel Attal. The people concerned “will have until September 15 to be vaccinated” and, after this date, will be implemented “controls and sanctions”, warned Emmanuel Macron.

>> To read: “Covid-19: these caregivers who refuse to be vaccinated”

Vaccination of middle and high school students and students at the start of the school year

The Head of State also announced that “vaccination campaigns” would be organized “from the start” for middle school, high school and college students.

And a recall campaign for people vaccinated first, in January and February, will start “early September”.

In order for all of these measures to be applied “as quickly as possible”, according to a parliamentarian, Parliament will sit in extraordinary session from July 21.

In sharp decline for weeks, the number of contaminations per day has recently started to rise again, to more than 4,200 on Sunday. It could rise “above 20,000 in early August if we do not act,” the Minister of Health warned on Sunday.

The number of patients ill with Covid-19 in critical care, who receive the most serious cases, was up slightly on Monday compared to the day before, to 957, or 10 more than on Sunday, far from the some 6,000 patients reached in peak of the third wave at the end of April.

With AFP