Since Monday, anyone in France is obliged to show a so-called sanitary pass to undertake any kind of public activity such as going to a restaurant or visiting a museum. This means that proof is required of either a negative PCR test result, a recovery from a Covid-19 infection that happened no longer than six months ago, or complete vaccination.
Unfortunately, the new measures are giving some people the wrong idea: many young people who do not want to wait weeks to receive their second dose are resorting to a dangerous alternative. By coming into contact with infected people, they expect to be infected in turn, rather consciously.
A 25-year-old man told the French paper ‘Le Figaro’ that he would no longer wear a mask and wash his hands less frequently to get his health pass via a certificate of recovery.
When the newspaper asked a 20-year-old philosophy student about this trend, she asserted she would let her friends cough on her should they catch Covid-19. To her, having a health pass is very important as it has become impossible to enjoy the pleasures of life without one.
Another young woman, aged 19, an assistant educator in a nursing home for people with disabilities, says she is not afraid of severe cases. She believes to not be the kind of person who is afraid of ‘natural’ things, but she is afraid of the vaccine, because it is not natural.
Jeremy Ward, a sociologist at Inserm, sounds the alarm. From a public health point of view, it is a catastrophic and irresponsible act. It means that there will be a surge in infections, with some of them being at risk of serious forms of the disease, and a potential to transmit the disease.
This ‘game’, as epidemiologist Philippe Amouyel called it in an interview with LCI, would be a big mistake. Even if many infections were asymptomatic, the risk of long Covid should not be underestimated, warns the expert.
