Almost two years after their arrival, vaccines against Covid-19 are no longer a reflex for a majority of French people, as weariness seems to have set in after two years of living with the circulation of the virus. Even if the Minister of Health, François Braun, and the government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, called on eligible French people to be vaccinated, this autumn campaign did not benefit from such significant communication as the previous ones. The arrival of new vaccines and the application of multiple eligibility rules also complicated the readability of the campaign.
Relatives of people at risk are eligible
The vaccination campaign launched on October 3 lists the populations most at risk of developing serious forms of Covid-19, as is done for the flu seasonally:
- people aged 60 and over;
- residents of accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) and long-term care units;
- immunocompromised people;
- pregnant women ;
- people in regular contact with people at risk.
These categories seem to target a small part of the population, but, in reality, this new vaccine booster is accessible to anyone who associates with a person at risk. ” A young person, without comorbidity, who regularly sees relatives in the target is therefore eligible.recalls a circular of November 21 from the Directorate General for Health.
Like the previous campaigns, this one authorizes a tighter interval of three months between two injections for the most fragile audiences (over 80 years old, immunocompromised, etc.), while the rest of the population at risk must wait six months. after the last Covid-19 injection or infection.
Vaccination centers have mostly closed, but vaccination remains accessible by city medicine: at a general practitioner, in a pharmacy or in a nurse’s office.
Vaccines tailored to variants
The majority of current vaccines are bivalent messenger RNA vaccines capable of targeting both the original strain of the virus and Omicron (BA.1) or close variants of Omicron (BA.4 and BA.5). These two bivalent vaccines offer better protection against the variants in circulation in recent months and are particularly recommended for people with comorbidity factors exposing them to a severe form of Covid-19.
As before, the Moderna vaccine (Spikevax) remains reserved for people aged 30 and over because of the risk of myocarditis in the youngest subjects. Those under 30 will therefore be able to benefit from one of the two new bivalent vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, which are just as protective.
Au 1is December, just over 1.9 million French people had received a booster dose with the bivalent vaccines available: 9.6% of people aged 70 and over benefited from it, but only 6.5% of people aged 60-69.