He does not wish to open the floodgates.
Alain Fischer, the chairman of the Orientation Council for the vaccine strategy in the context of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, expressed reservations on Wednesday on a too rapid expansion of the number of people who can be vaccinated.
The public debate is moving more and more in favor of a wider spectrum of eligible French people.
While the appointment slots for getting vaccinated remain empty, the government does not rule out allowing people under the age of 55 to be able to have their arm bitten earlier than expected.
For the moment, comorbidities aside, vaccination of 18-55 year olds remains the exception and only takes place in the event of a loss of dose.
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran has also reaffirmed wanting to vaccinate "by prioritization of age group".
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Alain Fischer considers that there are not currently enough doses to allow any French to be vaccinated.
Asked about Europe 1, including in the case of people exposed by their profession, the “Mister vaccine” of the government considers that it is necessary to “make choices”.
"Priority must go to those who most need" to be vaccinated, that is to say the most "vulnerable by age and disease".
Prof. Alain Fischer on vaccination: "If we opened it up to the first comer, a priority person will not be vaccinated (...) Priority must go to the people who need it most, those who have the most risk of 'sick, hospitalized, to die "# Europe1 pic.twitter.com/YGab70JVTR
- Europe 1 🎧🌍📻 (@ Europe1) April 28, 2021
To support his point, he takes the image of a cake with a necessarily limited number of parts.
“At the same number of doses, if we opened up to the first comer, a priority person will not be vaccinated today, but in a month.
If you give someone a piece of the pie, the rest will decrease for others. "
He insists on the need to prioritize people aged 70 and over to the detriment of "someone 30 years old in good health, who will also need the vaccine, a fortiori if she works in an exposed profession".
"We must continue the effort"
The "more than 20 million doses" already administered in France are "good, but far from the mark" according to Alain Fischer.
There are still “vulnerable people”.
He takes the example of “obese people under 50” for whom the vaccination “will be opened”.
"There are still other fragile people under 50" for whom vaccination is not accessible, he argues to justify his opposition to a too rapid expansion of the vaccination campaign.
As for the youngest and especially children, studies on the safety of vaccines are underway.
But their vaccination will be necessary for the acquisition of collective immunity.
In addition, concerning the overall health situation of the country, Alain Fischer warns that “the figures are down, but still relatively high. So we must continue the effort "to respect the restrictions in force. However, he believes that wearing a mask outdoors will be lightened before the obligation to have it indoors.
For her part, Anne Hidalgo, estimated this Wednesday morning that "it is time to be much more flexible, pragmatic in the management of this vaccination" and "to unleash the question of age". "Since the end of January, I have asked that we can open vaccination to teachers, to all professions who are on the front line," said the mayor of Paris on France Info. "And then more broadly, I believe that we must unbridle the question of age, because it is still a scandal that doses are not used when there are many people who want to be vaccinated ".