"The start of vaccination is now a matter of weeks."
The tone of Jean Castex's press conference was optimism on Thursday.
As expected, the Prime Minister clarified the terms of the Covid vaccination campaign.
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The vaccination will be free, and not compulsory.
"It is the choice of confidence, but we must be as many as possible to be vaccinated,"
he explained.
The campaign will be organized in several phases as recommended by the High Authority for Health (HAS) at the beginning of the week, and the first will concern residents of nursing homes and retirement homes and their staff, normally from the beginning of January.
"This corresponds to the first million doses that will be delivered to us
,
"
said Jean Castex.
Then the turn of people at risk and health professionals will come, until spring.
The last phase will concern the rest of the adult population.
This vaccine strategy, coordinated by infectious disease specialist Alain Fischer,
“Will be presented to Parliament”
during the month of December for a debate.
A logistical challenge
“In the next few days and in any event before December 29, the European Medicines Agency will vote on the marketing authorization for the first two most advanced vaccines, those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Once this authorization has been obtained, it is the HAS which will decide, ”
said Jean Castex, adding that the extremely short development times
“ in no way mean that we would have rushed to the detriment of health security ”
.
On the basis of contracts concluded with various industrial laboratories,
"France will have a total of 200 million doses, which will enable 100 million people to be vaccinated"
, to keep a safety margin, noted the Prime Minister.
Thanks to negotiations conducted at European level,
"the prices are the same for all
[EU] countries
, and the vaccines arrive at the same time."
Despite a
"significant"
logistical challenge
, Jean Castex assured that
"we will be ready for the first vaccinations"
.
Super-freezers have been ordered and two additional supply circuits set up for the first phase.
They will be blank tested in December.
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Priority people will first be offered a medical consultation to assess their possible contraindications, inform them of the benefits and risks and obtain their consent.
In the case of people with loss of autonomy,
"families will be closely associated"
, assured Olivier Véran.
The two government representatives said that general practitioners would be placed at the heart of the system, without giving further details.
"Everyone must be able to be vaccinated by a health professional near their home that they know, in whom they trust,"
said Jean Castex.
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Welcoming the
"tremendous hope"
represented by the arrival of the first vaccines, Olivier Véran recalled that there are still steps to be taken.
"Over the next few months, the vaccine will not profoundly change the course of the epidemic,"
he insisted, urging people to continue to respect barrier gestures.
Just like Jean Castex:
“Let us keep in mind the reality of the risk of a rebound in the epidemic.
This is what we experienced this summer.
We must at all costs prevent this scenario from happening again during the holiday season. ”
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