The Congress of New Caledonia postponed Tuesday, December 21 to February 28, 2022 the obligation to be vaccinated against Covid-19, under penalty of sanctions, for professionals in so-called sensitive sectors (health, transport, etc.) and people at risk.
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The measure was deferred for the first time from October 31 to December 31 for the French archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. But the sanction regime in the event of non-vaccination is still a problem, and elected representatives of Congress voted on Tuesday for a new postponement. The vaccination obligation of the general population, which itself is not accompanied by any coercive measure, will indeed come into force on December 31.
Adopted on September 3 unanimously by the groups at the congress, the vaccination obligation aimed to sensitize a poorly vaccinated population (less than 20%) while the authorities considered imminent the arrival of the virus on the territory, due to the strong contagiousness of the Delta variant.
The elected officials then did not foresee how the situation should be managed by companies.
The employers' organizations assure that by virtue of their responsibility for health and safety at work, they would be obliged to dismiss those who are resistant to vaccination.
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Faced with criticism from the social partners, but also opponents of vaccination who regularly demonstrate in the streets of Nouméa, the government decided at the end of October to postpone the entry into force of the text initially scheduled for October 31 until December 31.
Since then, the issue of the sanction regime has not been addressed.
The Calédonie ensemble group (UDI, center right) therefore submitted a text proposing a new postponement of this obligation to February 28.
The proposal tabled in their own name by five elected officials from very different backgrounds was rejected.
New Caledonia recorded its first local cases of Covid-19 on September 6.
Since then, the epidemic has killed 280 people.
The vaccination rate now reaches 74.86% of the vaccineable population, or 63.92% of the overall population.