204 doses of Pfizer vaccine will be injected this Thursday in the vaccination bus in Nanterre. – 20 Minutes / Caroline Politi
- A bus transformed into a traveling vaccinodrome crisscrosses the working-class districts of Hauts-de-Seine. Thursday, he made a stopover in Nanterre.
- 204 doses of Pfizer vaccine were injected.
- Despite the wait, the initiative was greeted by many residents.
It is barely 10 am and already a long queue stretches out in front of the market place in Nanterre. This Thursday morning, however, the stalls are empty, the traders absent, the caddies have been put away in the cupboard. “I received a piece of paper in my mailbox telling me that there was a possibility of getting vaccinated without an appointment, I did not want to miss that”, explains Jean-Michel, 75, who has been patient for 8 h 45.
The retiree has been hoping to be inoculated with the precious serum against Covid-19 for several weeks, but has struggled to find an appointment. He has been on the waiting list since February and has never been recalled. His son was not able to find him a niche on Doctolib either. “And then, I don’t really want to go get stung in the hospital, because I could catch it there,” he breathes.
204 doses available this Thursday
Since Tuesday, the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture and the Ile-de-France regional health agency have set up a bus transformed into a mobile vaccinodrome to meet the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods who sometimes struggle to keep up. the traditional route of vaccination. After Villeneuve-la-Garenne on Wednesday and before Bagneux on Friday, it is in the capital of Hauts-de-Seine, a stone’s throw from the high towers of the Chemin de l’Ile district, that he makes a stopover for the day. .
Of the 204 doses available this Thursday, half are accessible without an appointment. The others are reserved for residents who were on the (very) long waiting list drawn up by the municipality. Among the 600 names, a hundred people were contacted: the oldest and the inhabitants of the four main working-class districts of Nanterre.
“I was always told that they were going to call me back but I am still waiting”
“It is not enough to open the vaccination for people from working-class neighborhoods to go there,” insists the mayor (DVG) Patrick Jarry. We have known for a long time that in terms of health, for real equality, it is necessary to reach out to certain populations further removed from the healthcare offer, to support them. “
According to his team, in the lower-income neighborhoods of the city, the percentage of target people vaccinated – that is to say those over 70 and those suffering from co-morbidities – barely exceeds 10% where it is 25%. in the city center or on the Mont Valérien side. Abdel, 76, 40 of whom spent at Chemin de l’Ile, had almost given up on making an appointment, discouraged after several unsuccessful attempts. “We see people on television getting vaccinated but I don’t know how they did it, it’s impossible. So this operation, which he heard about by word of mouth, is a godsend for him.
Up to three hours of waiting
The circuit is well established: after a quick interview with the municipal agents – in particular to ensure that the candidates are indeed eligible – the inhabitants line up between the empty stands to access the pre-vaccination meeting. In the queue, some complain: to get to the first interview, it sometimes takes two to three hours.
“It’s a mess, blows Jeannine, 82 years old. Why did they make appointments with some and not with others? It is unfair. The town hall makes this choice: by granting half of a targeted meeting, it ensures that priority populations will receive a dose. Once the meeting is over, the rest is more fluid: three firefighters take turns to sting then the volunteers of civil protection monitor the newly vaccinated for a quarter of an hour. “Even if we waited two hours, we would have waited two weeks, maybe two months, to have the vaccine without this bus so it’s worth it”, smiles Michel, a few moments after receiving his dose.
“If it had been AstraZeneca, I wouldn’t have been there”
The operation also prompted some skeptics to take the plunge. Jeanne, 85, admits that she hesitated for a long time. The messenger RNA vaccines, then the controversies around the AstraZeneca worried him. A few meters from her, Khadija, 81, abounds. “New is not always good. And then me, I am at home, I pay attention. “
Finally, both were reassured by the millions of doses already injected. “But if it had been AstraZeneca, I wouldn’t have been there, I don’t want anyone to put anything in my body. In four weeks, on April 29, the bus will return to the same place, to inject the second dose this time.