“You have to be coercive and establish a rule: if you are not vaccinated, you can no longer go to restaurants, the theater or take the plane
[…]
.
You will need to have your vaccination certificate as a pass to be in the company ”.
Do not look for an official voice behind these words.
It is neither more nor less than the opinion left on November 10 on Twitter by the columnist Christophe Barbier.
But the words of the journalist, very followed on social networks, sparked an avalanche of comments, often critical, on the idea of establishing almost a "vaccination obligation" when we know that nearly one in four French people don't plan on getting stung.
On this point, Emmanuel Macron was very clear on Tuesday evening during his announcements on the alleviation of confinement: vaccination against Covid-19 will not be mandatory.
Should we make vaccination against Covid compulsory?
Let's try to be smarter than brutal!
My video editorial of the day.
pic.twitter.com/UWWJVj6Xqk
- Christophe Barbier (@C_Barbier) November 10, 2020
The debate around these vaccination certificates, when vaccines against Covid-19 will be available, is not Franco-French and was relaunched this Tuesday, November 24 by the boss of the Australian airline company Qantas.
Alan Joyce said he would require passengers taking his international flights to be vaccinated beforehand.
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Australian Health Secretary Greg Hunt himself has hinted that the condition for entry into the country could be a strict two-week quarantine ... or vaccination.
"We're not there for months and months"
“The issue of vaccination certificates has in fact been anticipated since almost the start of the epidemic,” recalls sociologist Jeremy Ward.
Whether or not these certificates are justified will depend above all on the efficacy of the vaccines and their safety profile ”.
However, the vaccine specialist Bruno Pitard, research director at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), warns: “Being vaccinated will unfortunately not be a guarantee of not getting sick since 5% of groups vaccinated as part of the tests carried out by the labs have nevertheless contracted Covid-19.
And are therefore likely to pass it on, even though it would be statistically much rarer.
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“Until we know more about vaccines, we don't know what to do and these announcements that stress the dimension of coercion are completely counterproductive,” says Jeremy Ward.
Today, the challenge is above all to obtain the doses, to organize a large and very complicated vaccination campaign, to reach people who are very difficult to access, and to build confidence in institutions.
To speak of obligations of anything before that is to put the cart before the horse!
"
From an “ethical point of view”, the sociologist nevertheless believes that these certificates would be “more justified” for international travel, because “less disabling for people” in their daily life.
"The conditions for these compulsory vaccination certificates to be acceptable for access to the workplace or to childcare facilities are indeed very high: we need to know a lot about the vaccine, whether it is very efficient and very safe and that it is very easily accessible for everyone.
But we won't be there for months and months!
"
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Moreover, for the time being, the French authorities have not commented on the advisability of generalizing these health passes.
When contacted, the Ministry of Health and the Directorate General of Health did not respond to our requests.