Obese people are eligible for vaccination since this Saturday, regardless of their age – Pascal GUYOT / AFP
- Obese adults can be vaccinated in France since this Saturday, regardless of their age.
- An expansion of vaccination which relieves this particularly at-risk population.
- With the first dose received, many obese people finally see the end of the tunnel.
It’s a shot he’s been waiting for months. This May 1, Dimitri, 27, received his first dose of Pfizer-BioNtech, benefiting from the extension of the vaccination to all adults with a BMI over 30, regardless of their age. In all, 2.3 million people under the age of 55 are affected by this measure decreed on Thursday.
A decision welcomed by Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Versailles: “Studies show that the more the weight increases, the more serious there are and the more deaths. There is an almost linear relationship between overweight and severe forms ”. The French figures do not deceive. Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, 47% of resuscitation patients were obese (BMI> 30), as were 40% of those who died.
A measure put in place too late?
Finally a first dose, would be tempted to proclaim Dimitri, who had been calling for this measure for a long time: “We know that obesity has been a risk factor since April 2020, that it is we who end up in sheaves or in the cemetery. Vaccination began in December in France. It therefore took five months to give us access to the vaccine, when we know the risk we run! “
For Mahmoud Zureik, prioritizing obese people straight away was impossible because of the lack of doses. In France, 17% of adults are obese: “It was too many people to be vaccinated and there were not enough vaccines at all at the start. Now that the doses are increasing, it is a very good thing that we are prioritizing this population. “
Double risk population
In addition, the majority of obese people in France being people over 55 years old, many of them have already been able to be vaccinated because of their age before being eligible for their BMI. In fact, the older we get, the more the proportion of obese people increases in the population. In 2014, according to Eurostat, 20.65% of people over 65 were obese, against “only” 9.3% of 25-34 year olds. Thus, of the more than eight million obese people in France, 5.7 million already had the possibility of being vaccinated because of their age.
Faced with these figures, Dimitri nuances: “I am 27 years old, I am much more exposed to Covid. The incidence among young people is higher, my job pushes me to be outside, the absence of contact is more difficult than for a person of 75 years who can isolate himself if he wishes it. We were on the front line and we were left to die. Now that he’s been stung for the first time, he says he looks to the future more calmly. “In about six weeks, I will be permanently protected against this virus. It makes the effort less costly to know that they are coming to an end. “
Rediscover recklessness
For Chloe, also vaccinated this Saturday, it is also the end of a long anxiety: “It was horrible to know that you were so much at risk and not being able to do anything to protect yourself. We felt totally helpless, when we saw in all the reports and articles that it was the obese who died. “While she is 33 years old, she admits living in a different world than that of friends of her age:” They don’t care about the virus, they know that they have little chance of developing serious forms. With my BMI of 37, I know the risks I am running. “
This first dose is a “appeasement”, obviously waiting for the second. “In the summer of 2020, we people most at risk, we had not really deconfined because we were afraid. With the vaccination, there is this time the hope of really getting back to the life before, ”she enthuses.
A vaccination that should also end up weighing on the resuscitation and death curves, especially since beyond obese people, vaccination has been extended to any adult with comorbidities, i.e. another 1.7 million people. additional people. “The impact of these vaccinations will be significant,” predicts Mahmoud Zureik. A good omen as the deconfinement begins this Monday. Dimitri concludes: “The population has accepted to confine themselves and to suffer measures to save our lives. To be vaccinated, and to allow the desaturation of hospitals, is to return the favor to them. We will have a happy summer ”.