The health pass would have had a double advantage.
It has prevented 4,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in France and increased gross domestic product (GDP) in the second half of 2021 by 6 billion euros, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Economic Analysis Council. (CAE), an organization attached to Matignon.
According to this comparative work carried out with the assistance of the OECD and the Bruegel Institute, the sanitary passes with similar characteristics set up in Germany and Italy respectively made it possible to avoid 1,100 and 1,300 deaths in these countries.
The increase in activity measured over the same period is 1.4 billion euros in Germany and 2.1 billion in Italy.
Using data from the OECD, researchers under the direction of economists Philippe Martin (CAE), Patrick Artus and Guntram Wolff (Bruegel Institute), as well as epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet calculated that without a health pass, the domestic product weekly gross (GDP) would have been 0.6 percentage point lower than it was in France, 0.3 point in Germany and 0.5 point in Italy.
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They also compared the situation of these three countries to that of Belgium and the Czech Republic, which have not implemented a health pass.
The pass "may have had an impact on economic activity directly by allowing vaccinated people to have, with less risk, more social and economic interactions and indirectly by reducing the need for restrictions put in place by the authorities" , according to the study.
45% higher intensive care occupancy without a sanitary pass
In France, the vaccination rate against Covid-19, which was 78.2% at the end of 2021, would have been only 65.2% without a pass, i.e. 13 points lower, say the authors who calculated a smaller difference, of 9.7 points, in Italy (80.1% against 70.4%) and even smaller in Germany of only 6.2 points (73.5% against 67.3%).
“Roughly half of the increase” in the number of vaccinated in the second half of 2021 “is due to the health pass”, declared on BFM Business Philippe Martin, deputy president of the CAE.
According to the researchers, the slightest increase in vaccination in Germany could come from the fact that "unlike France, communication around the health pass has been less clear, the restrictions on activities without a pass less strong and the implementation less centralized ".
The authors of the study further estimate that in France, “the number of Covid patients in intensive care would have been around 45% higher at the end of 2021 than what was observed with the health pass”, resulting in “levels of pressure hospitalization above the thresholds reached during previous confinements”.
