It’s good, it’s better, but it’s still not enough. France crossed at the start of the week the symbolic bar of 50% of French people having received a first dose vaccine against Covid-19. An apparent victory in the government’s vaccination campaign, but which is far from being the final trophy. Especially since the latest official figures note a slowdown in vaccinations. Indeed, last week, the executive sounded the alarm by stressing that if there were, at the beginning of June, nearly 400,000 daily first-time vaccines, they were only 200,000 in recent days.
This is not the first time that a drop in the number of candidates for injection has stalled, but “every time there has been shortness of breath the government has opened up vaccination to a new segment of the population. population ”, analyzes Anne Sénéquier, medical specialist and co-director of the Health Observatory. “So there was an influx as with young people who wanted to be able to go out, go to events, go on a trip, or go back to work. Now that the vaccination is open to all adults, it is no longer possible to compensate for the slowdowns.
Still far from collective immunity
The objective of achieving collective immunity by October therefore seems rather compromised. “Each vaccination further reduces the risk of transmission, but these are not complete vaccinations, which provide almost total protection. We are therefore still a long way from collective immunity. All the more so with the very contagious variant Delta, this collective immunity, which had been set at 60% of the vaccinated population, rose to 80% or even 90%, ”warns Anne Sénéquier.
Does this observation presage a fourth wave and confinement at the start of the school year? Inserm social epidemiology researcher Fabienne El Khoury is optimistic. For her, we must not only see that one in two French people is not vaccinated, but also “look at who are the vaccinated people, because 80% of vulnerable people are totally vaccinated, and that’s very good. Against Delta, the Pfizer vaccine is 96% effective against hospitalizations and AstraZeneca 92%. That is to say that out of 100 people vaccinated with Pfizer and infected with Delta, on average four are at risk of going to the hospital ”.
If the expert assures that the Delta variant will be in the majority at the end of the summer, the current vaccines should avoid a congestion of the intensive care units and therefore yet another confinement … On condition all the same that the French continue to be vaccinated. “An English study shows that it takes two doses of vaccine to be effective against this variant. In addition, the more resistant a variant, as is the case with Delta, the more we need maximum vaccination coverage, ”explains Fabienne El Khoury.
Go looking for vaccine-reluctant
For the two experts, the state must now go and find those who have not yet been vaccinated. “The classic vaccination campaigns tend to reach the most privileged populations and no longer precarious”, highlights the researcher in social epidemiology, who suggests launching “specific campaigns”. “In this crisis, we are a team. We lose or we win together, so we must not leave anyone behind. “
“If you do not create interest in people who have none to be vaccinated, neither from a collective point of view, nor from an individual point of view, they will never be vaccinated,” says Anne Sénéquier, who raises the question of the incentive for vaccination through a financial aspect, as is the case in certain countries. “In the United States, there are discount coupons in stores and, in Canada, a lottery to win a student scholarship. Lure of gain or team spirit: the government will have to choose its strategy to further pull the French towards collective immunity.