"In the current wave of infections, it is important to vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as possible."
This is how Berlin Senate Health Officer Dilek Kalayci justifies finally opening vaccination with AstraZeneca to all adults, not just those aged 60 or over as Germany decided at the end of March.
Other Länder, including Saxony and Bavaria, have made the same choice this week.
No such thing is planned in France.
Asked on this subject Thursday during the press conference of the government, Olivier Véran indicated that this question of widening the AstraZeneca vaccination to under 55 years “does not arise for the moment”.
The same answer applies at this stage for Janssen, which operates on the same principle and seems to carry the same very rare risk of thrombosis, even if the HAS has not yet updated its recommendations.
But by holding and maintaining this line, France would risk ending up with hundreds of thousands or even millions of vaccines on its hands at the end of June.
Enough to vaccinate nearly 14 million people by the end of June
Let's take out the calculator. By the end of June, 7.9 million Janssen doses - the first injections of which begin this Saturday - must be delivered. As this vaccine only requires a single dose, this potentially makes 7.9 million people eligible for vaccination in this interval.
Regarding AstraZeneca, by adding the deliveries planned in May, June, during the last week of April, as well as the million doses that have not yet been used, we come across about 8.6 million vaccines. We must subtract 3 million, corresponding to the 3 million first-time vaccinees over 55 years of age who must receive their second dose in the next few days or weeks (this campaign began on February 6, and the recommended gap between the two injections is 12 weeks). There are thus nearly 5.6 million doses available by the end of June for the first injections.
7.9 + 5.6, so that makes 13.5 million people aged at least 55 and supposed to be able to receive a first dose of vaccine.
A little less by subtracting the losses, small but inevitable.
At the same time, around 11 million people in this age group have not yet been vaccinated at all, Jean Castex said Thursday.
The 55-59 age group does not appear in the data from Public Health France, but we know that nearly 8 million aged 60 and over and 7 million 50-60 year olds have not yet been "bitten" .
Reluctance of some
11 is already much less than 13.5 million. Not to mention that part of this oldest population will remain reluctant to vaccination. On the other hand, Pfizer and Moderna are still administered to those over 55 as well. "Among all the over 55s that we have called, about a third do not want AstraZeneca and between 5 and 10% do not want to be vaccinated at all", indicates the general practitioner in Villeneuve-d'Ascq Jonathan Favre.
In addition to the very rare risk of thrombosis, he also points to the fact that "more and more people want to have a vaccination passport to go on vacation".
However, to be fully vaccinated with AstraZeneca, it takes twelve weeks (the time between the two doses).
Those who get bitten for the first time now should therefore wait until the end of July to be able to benefit from a full vaccination certificate.
“Patients are constantly calculating when they will be fully vaccinated.
This almost becomes the main reason against AstraZeneca.
This vaccine passport story turns against him, ”Judge Jonathan Favre.
Read also AstraZeneca: these doctors who vaccinate people under 55 despite the recommendations
Against this background, France can be expected to have too many AstraZeneca and Janssen doses in stock at the end of the first half of the year.
Like other doctors, this doctor is therefore pleading to formalize the possibility of administering one of these two products to those under 55 years of age, in certain cases and with the patient's agreement.
Such a precise threshold has not been fixed on a unanimous scientific basis.
Germany had chosen 60 years and the United Kingdom 30 years, for example.
“This is completely stupid.
Yesterday, we refused a patient of 54 years and 7 months simply because we were afraid of the medico-legal consequences ”, he thunders.
"Prepare to vaccinate several times if necessary"
"If the European and / or national authorities tell us that we can now offer AstraZeneca to younger people, we will follow the recommendations," said Olivier Véran.
It will still be necessary then to carry out an important work of persuasion, this vaccine having been limited to the less than 65 years, then suspended, then to the more than 55 years.
If nothing changes, the question will arise of knowing what to do with those AstraZeneca and Janssen doses in excess.
It will arise all the more since the last table of deliveries also projects 29.5 million AstraZeneca doses and 22.1 million additional Janssen doses in the second half of 2021. The contracts with these two groups could however not be renewed by the European Commission.
VIDEO.
"I would never have thought to throw doses of AstraZeneca": the rant of a doctor in video
"The objective may be to prepare to vaccinate several times if necessary, at the end of 2021 or at the beginning of 2022 for a second campaign," says a government source. AstraZeneca vials, for example, can be kept for six months in the fridge. It will of course also be possible to resell or even give the excess doses to other countries, especially those less advanced. AstraZeneca and Janssen at least have the advantage of requiring more flexible storage conditions and being less expensive than messenger RNA vaccines, Pfizer - which has become the flagship of vaccination in France - and Moderna.
