Anti-Covid vaccination could be open for all children aged 5 to 11 from this Thursday, December 22 and a law could transform the health pass into a vaccination pass in January 2022. Two controversial decisions.
Forgotten the solemn promises rejecting the vaccination obligation or the extension of the health pass to the acts of everyday life: the new year will consecrate the strategy of “all vaccinated” as the one and only outcome of a health crisis which will soon celebrate its second anniversary.
This is reflected in the latest government decisions, so France is currently experiencing its fifth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic on which is grafted the emergence of a new variant, Omicron, apparently very contagious but of which we do not has not yet clearly assessed the dangerousness.
Consequences, more than 50,000 new “cases” (people tested positive) are recorded daily in the country, more than 15,000 “Covid” patients are hospitalized, including nearly 3,000 in critical care and a balance sheet of the pandemic which is now today at 121,418 deaths.
In this context, an update on this new set of measures.
1 – Towards a transformation of the health pass into a vaccination pass from January 2022.
. What is contemplated:
– If the law establishing the vaccination pass is adopted, access to all places currently subject to the health pass will only remain authorized for people who have received a complete cycle of vaccination (currently two doses and a booster dose) or for those having recovered from Covid and having received a booster dose. The text establishing this vaccine pass should be presented to the Council of Ministers on January 5, 2022 and examined by the deputies from January 10. “We hope that it can be definitively adopted and promulgated before the end of January,” said the government spokesman.
. What is debating:
– “The vaccination pass is in fact a vaccination obligation disguised “, admitted at the end of last week the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, questioned by the media Brut. The word is out! The use of compulsory vaccination had however been dismissed by Emmanuel Macron: “I said it, I repeat it, the vaccine will not be compulsory”, he assured in December 2020 at the time of the launch of the vaccination campaign. . A change of foot obviously underlined by those who oppose this measure.
– “We want vaccinated people to be able to live almost normally. That implies that non-vaccinated people live in virtual confinement“said the government spokesman. What comfort the opponents of vaccination who already accuse the health pass of being draconian and of organizing a segregation between people.
– The same government spokesperson clarified that it would no longer be possible with the vaccine step to access places that require it “by taking a test of less than 24 hours”. While vaccines, if they effectively reduce the risk of developing a severe form of Covid-19, do not prevent either being contaminated or transmitting the virus. An argument for all those who affirm that you run less risk of contaminating others when you have been tested “negative” than when you are vaccinated. A reality recalled this Monday by the CEO of the BioNTech laboratory, co-inventor of the Pfizer vaccine, who stressed that “even people who have been vaccinated three times are likely to transmit Covid with the vary Omicron”.
– The issue of the obligation of the vaccination pass in the workplace “Arises and it is legitimate,” said Olivier Véran last weekend. Discussions on this point must take place this Monday between the Minister of Labor and the social partners. If the text were to go in this direction, “Companies would have no choice but to suspend refractories”, however alerted Benoit Serre, the president of the National Association of HRDs, recalling that 3 out of 10 companies having already imposed the health pass on their employees “are encountering difficulties”. Difficulties which can only be amplified by the vaccination pass. Several leaders of trade union organizations have already come out against this measure.
2 – Vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 from January 2022
. What is contemplated:
– “The vaccination of children is a necessity”, said the Prime Minister John Castex in an interview with France Bleu Alsace on December 12. And three days later, during his televised intervention, Emmanuel Macron spoke out in favor of generalizing the anti-Covid vaccine to all children. Since December 15, only the children most at risk of developing a serious form or those living in the entourage of immunocompromised people are eligible for vaccination. But from December 22, the vaccination of 5-11 year olds could start in specialized centers “if all goes well“, announced the Minister of Health. The High Authority has just given the green light for a vaccination “neither obligatory nor required”. For this age group, the only vaccine available would be the Pfizer product with lower dosage than for adults.
. What is debating:
– “The vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 without comorbidity is ethically acceptable,” declared the National Consultative Ethics Committee on December 17, but specified that no measure could lead “directly or indirectly to stigmatization or any prejudice to children whose parents will not choose vaccination”. Which, added to the opinion given by the High Authority, seems to exclude from the outset compulsory vaccination for this age group.
– If the level of contamination is high in children, the risk of them developing serious forms of the disease is extremely limited. In the risk-benefit calculation for this vaccine, “the benefit is less important than in the elderly”, admitted himself Alain Fischer, president of the Council of orientation of the vaccine strategy. Hence many questions from parents about the advisability of a vaccine in the absence of studies on possible side effects, whether in the short or longer term. A survey carried out by Elabe for BFM and l’express on December 16 shows that 7 out of 10 parents are unfavorable to this vaccination of children.
– Adults living with school children certainly have, as several studies show, a greater risk of being infected. But then again, if vaccination does not prevent transmission in adults, neither will it prevent it in children. Especially since with the lower doses that could be administered to them, no data exists on the impact of vaccination of 5-11 year olds on epidemic dynamics.
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