- Criticized for its management of the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus, the government has decided to extend vaccination to a greater number of people.
) For the opposition, France should have placed additional orders in addition to those made via the European Union.
The government passes the second. Under fire from critics, the executive decided to speed up the vaccination campaign against Covid – 19 , considered too slow. If during the first phase, the strategy established by the government provided for priority vaccination of nursing home residents and their caregivers, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, backtracked and announced the enlargement to all caregivers – hospital and city, firefighters and home helpers over 27 years. As well as to
the set of over 75 years by the end of January.
So much more people than expected. What arouse the fear of a shortage. Will there be enough vaccines for everyone? Has the government ordered enough?
Orders deemed insufficient by the opposition
In the opposition , voices are raised to denounce the lack of anticipation and clarity of government and the risk of shortage which is to be feared, while several million French men and women can now claim vaccination. “I do not understand anything about this campaign, all of this is absurd,” said LR mayor of Orleans, Serge Grouard. Tuesday morning, it was Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region, who pointed to the “urgency” of the situation with “the threat of a third wave”, which could be reinforced by the arrival in the ‘Hexagon of the British variant of the coronavirus , fearing that the government has not ordered enough vaccines.
“Tell us the truth! How many doses have been ordered exactly by France? “, He asked Tuesday morning on RTL. “I have this unpleasant feeling that there is a shortage of vaccines, a lack of orders and that we are, once again, having a doctrine which is fixed by the shortage”, he said. he added, tackling the government on its management of masks in the spring. Criticisms also formulated by the leader of the deputies LR. “There are doses”, but “insufficiently”, added LCI Damien Abad, who believes that the executive “deceives the French by confusing doses and vaccines”.
French orders placed via the EU
But how many doses of vaccines does France have? How many has she ordered? And by what means? Like the other Member States, it has placed its orders through the European Union (EU). The European Commission thus ordered in 450 some 2 billion doses, for a total population of 315 millions of people, from six pharmaceutical companies, not knowing which vaccines would be available first. In these European pre-orders, 200 millions of doses have been reserved from Pfizer-BioNTech , the first laboratory whose vaccine has been authorized by the European Medicines Agency, and distributed in proportion to the population of each Member state. Is around 15% of orders that come back to France, and the delivery of which will take place over several months, at a rate of half a million doses delivered every week.
If to date, France has vaccinated only 7 . people, she had one million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine on Wednesday. But with a million residents and health workers in Ehpad , and some 5 million people over the age of 50 years, will the stocks be sufficient to administer the two necessary doses ? Then, will the government meet its goal of vaccinating 20 millions of people by this summer? “Shouldn’t France place orders in addition to the European order, which obviously our German neighbors were able to do? “Proposed Xavier Bertrand, judging that” Europe is late on this “. And it is not only in France that this European vaccination strategy is not unanimous. Across the Rhine, controversy is raging. So in Germany, which has however vaccinated more than 310. 000 people against the Covid – 19, we also fear a shortage. Public opinion criticizes Angela Merkel for having “relied too much on the European Union” to obtain supplies. And an official from the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, further accused France of pressuring the EU to order fewer doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine in favor of the French vaccine from Sanofi.
Several other vaccines available soon
In Paris, the executive defends itself. “The vaccine strategy cannot be based on a single vaccine. Hence the importance of having done this European work which guarantees us access to at least six vaccines, ”said Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, on CNews on Wednesday. “Six contracts have already been signed, that’s more than two billion doses, it’s considerable. This makes it possible to cover the entire population gradually, so there will be no shortage but everything will not happen in a single day “, he added, recalling that the government wanted to place an order going” beyond 200 millions of doses ”already ordered and reserved. “It is absurd to oppose countries and laboratories among themselves, all countries need all vaccines, to vaccinate as many people as possible by the summer,” he added. The European framework is helping us in this regard: it allows us guaranteed and cheaper access to all vaccines. ”
For now, France can count, we said, on the delivery of 450. 000 doses of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine each week, to which should be added 200. doses “the first month”, then “500. 000 per month ”of the American’s vaccine Moderna , which was validated this Wednesday by the European Medicines Agency and the European Commission, and which is now waiting for the fire green of the High Authority of health (HAS) in France.
Several other vaccines should gradually arrive on the European market. That of the British laboratory AstraZeneca , already authorized and administered in the UK , and which has the advantage of being stored much more easily than the messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Then that of the Belgian Janssen laboratory, as well as that of the German start-up CureVac. The 20210106 French vaccine from Sanofi-GSK , it should not be ready before the end of the year.