But what becomes of the citizen collective responsible for giving its opinion on vaccines?
Announced with great fanfare by the President of the Republic on November 24, its objective was to "involve the population more broadly" in the vaccination campaign in a context of mistrust, even popular rejection.
Composed of 35 citizens representing French society drawn by lot, it was installed on January 16.
But its members, who do not speak to the press, have still issued no recommendations ... while nearly two million doses of vaccines have already been administered.
Wasn't the opposition therefore right to see it as a “gadget”, all the less useful today since, poll after poll, the level of mistrust for vaccination is dropping significantly?
On the executive side, we continue to defend the usefulness of this citizen body which should be operational by the second half of February.
For the time being, citizens, new to public health topics, are being trained, we are told.
After a first weekend of work during their installation, they met health professionals, local elected officials, in particular their mayors, and went to vaccination centers.
"They are in training, they have plenty of documents to read, we cannot ask them to settle everything in four days", defends them Professor Alain Fischer, "mister vaccine" of the government who will interact with them regularly.
"It will find its place" during the general public campaign
"Their work does not aim to reorient the vaccine strategy but to refine it as well as possible to the territory", develops Alain Fischer according to which said strategy will in any case have to evolve over the weeks with regard to health information or 'possible delays in delivery of doses.
The authorities are counting on the citizen collective to also judge its communication, while the target audiences will be increasingly large (today, only priority audiences have access to the vaccine).
The government is considering in particular a communication campaign around March to encourage vaccination over 65 years without comorbidity when this age group will be eligible.
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But does the citizen collective, thought of as a tool of transparency, still have a meaning when public opinion has mainly converted to vaccination?
Yes, assure the authorities who do not hide that it is especially at the beginning of summer, when the general public vaccination campaign will begin - that is to say when it will be open to the non-priority population - that the collective citizen "will find its place" to issue opinions.
"There is still a large number of people who hesitate, so the collective is not obsolete," says Professor Alain Fischer.
“Opinion can be volatile on these subjects, we develop, cautiously, at the Ministry of Health.
If tomorrow an incident occurs in a European country, whether true or false for that matter, it can have an effect on public opinion.
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