There 7th wave is here: the incidence rate of the epidemic has doubled in one week on almost all of metropolitan France and in all age groups of the population and on June 28, nearly 150,000 people had been infected with Covid.
After Brigitte Bourguignon, Elisabeth Borne in turn asked to encourage the wearing of a mask “in crowded places” And “enclosed spaces”, especially “public transport”.
Elisabeth Borne also invited everyone to “check their vaccination schedule”especially French people over 60 and the most vulnerable who “must benefit from the second booster dose”, that is, their fourth injection. They should also receive “in the coming days awareness emails” from Health Insurance, said Matignon.
“That not going fast enough”, had explained this June 21, Prof.Alain Fischer, President of the Vaccine Strategy Guidance Council, during a press briefing from the Ministry of Health.
Indeed, while 55% of people hospitalized are over 80 years old, only 48% of residents nursing home and 31% of over 80s living at home and 19% of 60-79 year olds have done their recall. “These variants are more transmissible and this resumption of cases is accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations”he added, before emphasizing that there are still “38 to 40 deaths every day”. Currently, despite the cumulative effect of injections and infections, the level of protection for the most fragile is no longer optimal. With the booster vaccination, protection against serious forms increases to 90% only 8 days after the injection.
Current vaccines, designed two years ago, are losing effectiveness
That said, the government is at the same time preparing a vaccination campaign for the start of the school year, with new vaccines. Indeed, mEven in Portugal, one of the best vaccinated countries in the world, has faced a 6th wave, with around 7,000 deaths. “Epidemic upsurges happen because the virus mutates to evade the immune response; it has evolved a lot since vaccines were designed two years ago,” explained to the Journal du Dimanche (June 26) Professor Fischer. In sum, “vstaking into account the genetic modifications of the variants, a certain number of antibodies which were neutralizing against the preceding variants, up to Delta, are less so against Omicron”.
Also, in a second phase, in the autumn, we should have (after the traditional marketing authorization procedures) 4 combination vaccines more effective against variants, “with a wider variant recognition spectrum”, according to Prof.Alain Fisher.
“We can do an encore now, then another in the fall”. According to him, doing two reminders spaced 3 or 4 months apart is not problematic and in no way risky. “This does not pose a problem of tolerance or vaccine efficacy.”
What are these 4 new vaccines? For when ?
Moderna and Pfizer are working on bivalent vaccines combining two RNA sequences of the Spike protein, one directed against the original Wuhan strain and the other against Omicron.
The partial results communicated by Pfizer suggest that the effectiveness is better, assures Professor Fischer at the JDD: “The rate of neutralizing antibodies after vaccination would be higher than its current level after a classic booster injection. In terms of duration of protection, this could save a few additional months.”
THE French Sanofi is preparing a more classic vaccine directed against the Beta variant, which would induce “high levels of neutralizing antibodies against the different variants.”
Likewise, the spanish vaccine Hipra combines Spike protein sequences from Alpha and Beta.
When will they be available? Ideally, they should be at the beginning of autumn rather than in December, to be coupled with influenza vaccination, as recommended by the High Authority for Health. According to Professor Fischer, “A person over 80 could benefit from it as early as October; a 60-year-old who is having his fourth injection today could receive a new booster with these new products in December.”
Sources:
- Update on the Covid-19 epidemic: “Together, let’s remain cautious”, government, June 29, 2022.
- Interview Alain Fischer, JDD, June 26, 2022.
- Press conference Ministry of Health, June 21, 2022.
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