For vaccination as for food, the French now prefer to consume local.
This Friday, while we could find an appointment from one hour to another at the Stade de France, emblematic vaccine of the campaign, the center of Clichy (Hauts-de-Seine), was full, like most small structures in Ile-de-France.
In this municipal center open since January 18, at the end of the morning, people of all ages coming to be vaccinated parade continuously.
The organization is now well established: registration on the first floor, medical examination and vaccination on the second, then a waiting room for the statutory fifteen minutes.
The total journey lasts about thirty minutes.
"It calms down a little before the lunch break, but otherwise we keep up with the pace," explains a student in charge of data entry, since the city now uses 50% of temporary employees for administrative tasks.
The success of "small" centers
Open five days a week, the center reached its maximum capacity with 1,600 appointments per week, two-thirds of which were second injections, still with Pfizer.
"With the opening of vaccination to all audiences, we have many more inhabitants of the city than before, and I think that proximity is a key to explain the constant attendance", estimates Dr. Christian Bourragué, general practitioner retired, who comes at least once a week for a vacation.
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"We have no vacant slot, and as soon as a person withdraws, the agents of the call center contact the inhabitants", insists the doctor.
Clichy is considered a "small" center, with four vaccination boxes, without comparison with the Paris-La Défense Arena vaccine park and its 21 boxes and which also has plenty of slots, even if it continues to grow. vaccinate more than 2,800 people every day, more than the initial goal.
Associations, sports clubs ...
At the national level, this preference of the French for neighborhood structures, more suited to their daily lives, is confirmed. "We were doing 3,000 injections per week and we fell to 1,600. It's very quiet, we were no longer used to it", illustrates Dr Sébastien Combès, head of the vaccination center in Millau, in Aveyron. . In this weekly report, only 400 first injections were carried out, illustrating the drying up of demand. To the point that the village hall will only open five days a week instead of six and that doses will be sent to the neighboring Haute-Garonne, which is no longer in demand.
"In our population pool, nearly 60% of people have been vaccinated (against 47.1% on June 6 at the level of the department) and we have had many people affected by the Covid who cannot yet be done vaccinate, explains the doctor. Those who really wanted to have already come and those who are still hesitant will wait until September, telling themselves that the second dose falls during the holidays, with the fear of being sick, of having a sore arm… It will take time. Now it's proximity that comes into play. ”
The general practitioner was able to measure it, with two successful vaccination operations for a total of 800 injections in the villages of La Cavalerie and Nant, "in a very rural environment, 30 km from Millau": "Vaccinodromes are made for mass vaccination, then you really have to go to football clubs, associations, social services to communicate again. I insist on colleagues in the world of health, who are not all vaccinated. If they don't, it's hard to get the message across. "