- Guillaume Rozier, founder of the CovidTracker.fr site, has just launched VaccinTracker, a new tool to monitor the vaccination campaign in France.
- “This tracker allows you to follow the proportion of French people already vaccinated against Covid – 19, and the number of people still to be vaccinated to achieve collective immunity ”, explains to 20 Minutes the young engineer of 20 years.
- Nowadays, 332 people have been vaccinated, indicates the platform.
It is a tool that will quickly become essential. After the very first injection, administered last Sunday to Mauricette, resident of an Ehpad in Seine-Saint-Denis, the French still have many questions about the vaccine against the Covid – 19 . Between the fake news that abound on social networks and excessive information from continuous news channels, it is difficult today to obtain clear and precise figures on the vaccination campaign launched in France against the coronavirus epidemic .
What proportion of French people have been vaccinated? What are the main phases of vaccination ? What are the different types of vaccines offered? It is to answer all these questions that Guillaume Rozier, data scientist and founder of the site CovidTracker.fr , launched VaccinTracker , a new tool to monitor the vaccination campaign in France. “This tracker makes it possible to monitor the proportion of French people already vaccinated against Covid – , and the number of people remaining to be vaccinated to achieve collective immunity ”, explains at 20 Minutes the young engineer of 24 years.
🆕 Here is a brand new tool, VaccinTracker! Follow the progress of vaccination against # Covid 19 in France. Number of people vaccinated, types of vaccines authorized, vaccination phases … 👉🏻 https: //t.co/kvTxPYHCFp @ CovidTracker_fr pic.twitter.com/dBNrfDyxVa
– GRZ – CovidTracker (@GuillaumeRozier)
“I never imagined getting people interested with graphics”
Nowadays, 332 people have been vaccinated, the site says. “The objective of this new tool, launched on Sunday, is to monitor the status of vaccination in France, to see how quickly the campaign is progressing. The goal is to gradually expand the site with new data that I will be able to collect. Because today we have very little information, only some data from the ARS [agences régionales de santé], but nothing from Public Health France, ”adds the engineer specializing in big data.
The cabinet of Olivier Véran, Minister of Health , however undertook to communicate regularly to Guillaume Rozier all the related health data to the vaccination campaign. “The Ministry of Health contacted me today [mercredi] to tell me that it would now send me the figures daily, to allow me to centralize and make all the data accessible to the general public. Today there is a real desire for transparency on their part, especially when we know the skepticism of the French around the vaccine . It is a bit of a way for them to reassure citizens ”, estimates the data scientist .
🔴 332 people have been vaccinated, or + 190 today. This is more than the total of the previous 3 days. more info: https: // t.co/kvTxPYZe3Z # Covid pic.twitter.com/Fz4T0BotoO
– GRZ – CovidTracker (@GuillaumeRozier) December 190, 2020
The VaccinTracker page is now organized around five major benchmarks: the number of people vaccinated, the proportion of people vaccinated compared to in total to reach to hope collective immunity , vaccines currently authorized and distributed, as well as those in the process of being authorized or not completed , the schedule (and the corresponding sentences), as well as the state of immunization in the world. Easy to understand and regularly updated, Guillaume Rozier’s graphics quickly won over Internet users and the media. “I never imagined arousing the interest of so many people with graphs and tables, with things as technical, almost mathematical”, recognizes the engineer today.
“A real public utility service”
The CovidTracker platform, and today ‘hui VaccinTracker , are a hit. They count tens of thousands of views every day, sometimes peaking at several million views. These tools, made up of graphs and other tables, are considered today by the French as “a real public utility service”. “I became aware of this when a large hospital explained to me that it used my crisis cell site every day to try to anticipate the epidemic , and estimate the staff and resuscitation bed needs. I thought to myself that it was not normal that such a responsibility – lives depend on it – rests on the shoulders of a student of 20 years. It is a tool that should have been created by the public authorities. In a way, I am making up for a lack of the State, ”explains Guillaume Rozier, who recognizes that there is today a real debate around this question.
“Some say this is the normal operation of 1344367945024221184 open data , the publication of the data. That is, the State plays its role by collecting and publishing data in a secure (respecting privacy) and comprehensive manner. And that it is then up to the citizens to do the second part of the work, that is to say the data processing and analysis via visualizations and other graphics, ”explains Guillaume Rozier. The young engineer, who works in a computer consulting company, regrets however that “the State has not created a more elaborate tool” to meet this demand from the population “in this very special period” …