As the Covid-19 epidemic rises, with 50,000 people testing positive in France on Tuesday, the government is encouraging the oldest to do the second reminder. “One in five people eligible between 60 and 79 years old” did not receive this reminder in France, estimates Alain Fischer, president of the Council of orientation of the vaccine strategy (COSV), Wednesday June 22 on franceinfo. That is “8 to 9 million people” which can “avoid a real risk of ending up in hospital”according to the professor.
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franceinfo: Do we have to fight against the impression that the epidemic is over and repeat that we must get vaccinated?
Alain Fisher: There is a moderate recovery but a resumption of the epidemic. We know that for fragile people, the elderly, doing a second booster now means raising them to a level of protection from serious forms of the disease of more than 90% for several months. So there are still not enough elderly and frail people, immunocompromised in particular, who have received this second booster. One in five eligible people aged 60 to 79 did not receive this dose. It would be very very useful for these people if they received a second booster as soon as possible because in about a week they will recover a better level of protection. So it’s avoiding a real risk of ending up in hospital, of having a serious form of the disease.
Is it useful to reopen vaccination centers?
In absolute terms the answer is no because it is possible to get vaccinated in many pharmacies, with many doctors. These vaccination capacities are sufficient. In addition, there are still about 200 vaccination centers that are open in France. These three types of possibility exist. They must be used without there being any need to reopen centres.
At less than 60 years old, it is recommended to do this second booster dose?
For those under 60, what you need is a reminder. And most people did.
“To protect against the different variants, you need three doses.”
Alain Fischer, Chairman of the Vaccine Strategy Guidance Councilat franceinfo
But for the moment, for these people under 60, there is no reason to consider a second booster because the level of their immune memory is of good quality and they remain well protected. Ideally, it would be very good to try to be able to limit the transmission. But we know that the vaccine, even if it has an effect on transmission, it is still more moderate than the effect on protection against serious forms. Hence the fact that a second booster is not recommended with the same strength of recommendation for those under 60 years of age. You really have to focus on people who have not received this second reminder and are over 60 years old, it still represents between 8 and 9 million people in France. These are the people who need to be vaccinated first.