One dose of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine at Montpellier (illustrative image). – AFP
After a chaotic start, the government counts accelerate the vaccination campaign in France . “A good thing” for the president of the Hospital Federation of France (FHF), but he fears that “everything rests on the hospital”, already exhausted by the Covid epidemic – .
“Plus the population field at to vaccinate will expand, the more it will be necessary to mobilize, ”said Frédéric Valletoux during a briefing, adding that “the situation is serious enough for everyone to mobilize”. “We are still awaiting declarations to this effect from the great leaders of city doctors”, he added, stressing that “it is not the vocation of the hospital to organize the vaccination centers” called to be multiply in town.
Lower the pressure in sheave
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran , indicated Tuesday morning that 20 vaccination centers “in addition to hospitals” would be operational this week, 300 next week and 500 at 500 by the end of January
“We cannot rest everything on the ‘hospital “, insisted Frédéric Valletoux, recalling that” the hospital forces are monopolized s by taking charge of the epidemic “, which remains on” a high plateau “, in particular in the Grand Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regions.
The FHF counts on vaccination for reduce the pressure in the intensive care units and other services: ” Much is expected of this campaign to allow hospital workers to fully exercise their missions and return to a more traditional mode of operation ”. But that “might not prevent a new epidemic wave if it were to occur before March-April” and “we cannot rule out a scenario with even higher pressure on hospitals”, he warned.