More than 2,600 "likes", a rather rare thing for a message posted on Twitter on Doctolib.
“France, with 64.75% of its population vaccinated (at least one dose) has just overtaken Germany (61.84%) and Italy (64.68%) in terms of vaccination coverage.
Proof of the dynamism of vaccination this summer in France ”, welcomed the platform on Friday, which aggregates the vast majority of vaccination appointments made in France.
🔴 France, with 64.75% of its population vaccinated (at least one dose) has just overtaken Germany (61.84%) and Italy (64.68%) in terms of vaccination coverage.
Proof of the dynamism of vaccination this summer in France. #VaccinationCovid
- Doctolib (@doctolib) August 6, 2021
In reality, the site did not choose any of our neighbors.
Spain, Belgium and Portugal, in particular, remain ahead of this ranking of vaccination coverage with at least one dose, according to data compiled by the site Our World in data.
However, France has constantly recovered in recent months, moving from the last at the very beginning to ninth place (out of 27).
3.2 million appointments in three days
Back to the first weeks of the vaccination campaign, when France was relegated to the back of the pack. Blame it on a sluggish start and much commented, especially because the government did not want to rush the antivax. The opening of vaccinodromes and the integration of new eligible populations, which occurred earlier than expected, then made it possible to accelerate. On March 27, three months to the day after the first injection in Mauricette's arm, France had already returned to 9th position ... before being overtaken again by Germany and other countries during the spring.
The marked slowdown in the first injections throughout the month of June will push the country back to 16th place, despite the government's attempts to counter this fall: flexibility in the time between the two injections, possibility of receiving the second dose at another place that the first while on vacation, etc. But nothing worked. The number of first daily injections fell from 400,000 to 160,000 in a month and a half.
It was the announcement, by Emmanuel Macron, of the upcoming expansion of the health pass, on July 12, which served as a huge boost.
In the three days that followed alone, nearly 3.2 million French people made an appointment to receive their first injection of the vaccine, more than 14% of those who had not yet been vaccinated.
In three weeks, France has returned to Germany, Italy and Sweden, among others, with more than 44 million inhabitants who received a first dose of vaccine on August 6.
That is to say a vaccination coverage of nearly 66%.
Collective immunity remains a long way off
It therefore remains lower than that in Spain, Portugal and Belgium, but also in Ireland, Finland and the Netherlands.
Malta, the smallest European country, is far ahead with 91% of its inhabitants first vaccinated.
Outside the European Union, the UK, where few minors are allowed to be vaccinated at the moment, is at 69%.
Each day, more than 8 injections are performed per 1,000 inhabitants in France, making it the third fastest rate behind Denmark and Belgium.
More than half of them are for first doses, and the government has set itself the goal of reaching the 50 million inhabitants who have received at least one dose of vaccine by August 31 (Doctolib plans 50.4 million this day).
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Among the 44 million already "bitten", nearly 37 million, or 54.6% of the population, are fully vaccinated.
Our World in data shows a rate of only 49%.
The explanation is simple: the site does not consider people who have received a single dose of vaccine after being infected in the past as fully vaccinated inhabitants.
With 54.6%, France appears, again, in ninth place.
But such a rate remains very insufficient to contain the epidemic, as illustrated by the fourth wave which is currently falling on hospitals.
With the highly transmissible Delta variant, scientists agree that it would be necessary to reach 90% of vaccinated to hope to bet on collective immunity.
