A crucially important step towards easing restrictions and eventually beating the pandemic. As of Monday, all remaining adults between the age of 18 and 49 can register to get the Covid-19 vaccine in France.
Nevertheless, people will still have to be patient, given that available slots are “progressively” coming online, Minister of Solidarity and Health Olivier Véran emphasised. New appointments will be made available on a “daily basis”, he further underlined.
Doctolib, the online platform in charge of organising appointments, has noted that their mechanisms are well-prepared for the expected demand, but noted that appointments will still be limited due to a limited amount of available doses, “most notably Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.” A spokesperson for the platform concluded: “28 million adults are eligible for the vaccination and not vaccinated to date. However, on average, we can only provide about 500,000 appointments per day.”
Vaccinating as many people as possible is an important step towards guaranteeing that the virus will not spiral out of control again. Nevertheless, for the time being, the situation in France continues to improve. On Saturday, 10,675 positive cases were reported across the country, while 16,847 people were treated in hospitals, out of which 3,028 were in intensive care.
Despite this downward tendency, the rate of 10,000 new daily infections is still “insufficient” to completely rule out the possibility of a new wave, Prof Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Pasteur Institute, recently stated.
Prof Fontanet further noted: “The numbers currently tell us that if the downward trend continues smoothly until 9 June, when the next set of restrictions are set to be lifted, we will probably have a quiet summer.” The coming two weeks will be “crucial”, the government advisor emphasised. He therefore appealed to French citizens to continue to uphold safety protocols, especially when inside, where infection risks are considerably higher.
When it comes to mask mandates, the epidemiologist fears that with rising temperatures, a lot of unvaccinated people will drop their masks as well. In the meantime, some towns have already announced that they will lift the mandate. Other public health experts in France have also voiced a desire to drop the mandate from June, if the infection numbers continue to decrease.
To date, 25,315,595 people in France have received at least one vaccine jab, which equals 37.8% of the total population, and 48.2% of the country’s adult population. The government’s goal of reaching the 30 million mark by 15 June thus seems achievable. After that, government officials want to continue encouraging the remaining people to get their shots to avoid a slowing down of the operation.
Given that the European Medicines Agency approved the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for adolescents between the age of 12 and 15 on Friday, another part of the population might soon become eligible for the vaccine.
