Significant health and economic consequences. The Economic Analysis Council assessed, in a report (PDF) published Tuesday, January 18, the impact of the introduction of the health pass on the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic as well as on the French economy. To reach these conclusions, the CAE modeled “what the vaccination dynamic would have been without the implementation of the pass”. “We expected an effect but it is greater than expected”, recognized the mathematician-economist Miquel Oliu-Barton, co-author of this study, on franceinfo. Here are five figures that reveal the repercussions of the implementation of this device – which will soon be replaced by a vaccine pass.
1A jumping vaccination rate
The health pass first had the effect of encouraging the French to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Without the health pass, “the vaccination rate would have been 65.2% against 78.2%”, notes the report of the Economic Analysis Council. Its introduction has therefore made it possible to increase the vaccination rate by 13 points.
According to the calculations of the CAE, it is in France that the effect of the health pass has been the strongest, in comparison with Germany or Italy, where it was also set up in the summer. 2021. On the other side of the Rhine, the vaccination rate would have been 67.3% without a health pass, whereas the vaccination rate observed there is 73.5%. In Italy, the increase in the vaccination rate due to the health pass is 9.7 points, with a vaccination level of 80.1% against 70.4% if this device had not been applied.
This difference between France and its German and Italian neighbors is due to a communication strategy “less clear”, from “restrictions of activities without a less stringent pass” and an “less centralized implementation” compared to France, estimates the Economic Analysis Council.
2Thousands of hospitalizations avoided
If the vaccination campaign had not been boosted by the health pass, the number of hospital admissions at the end of 2021 would have been around 31% higher in France, according to the authors of the report. The Economic Analysis Council estimates that it has avoided 32,065 hospitalizations.
The introduction of the health pass has also reduced the number of patients in intensive care due to Covid-19. According to the CAE, the latter would have been “about 45% higher than what was observed with the health pass” end of 2021. A difference that “is not trivial”, points out the report, since it “would have resulted in hospital pressure levels above the thresholds reached during previous confinements”.
Finally, the authors of the report estimate that the health pass has prevented 3,979 deaths in France. As of January 17, Public Health France recorded 127,263 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the epidemic.
3Around 6 billion euros saved
The introduction of the health pass therefore avoided exceeding the occupancy thresholds of these beds, one of the indicators used by the government to decide on previous confinements. And this limited pressure on the resuscitation services made it possible, according to the Economic Analysis Council, not to take stricter measures to curb the epidemic, which would have had “significant economic and social consequences”.
Here again, in comparison with Germany and Italy, it is in France that the health pass has had the most repercussions, “by allowing vaccinated people to have, with less risk, more social and economic interactions and indirectly by reducing the need for restrictions put in place by the authorities”.
At the end of 2021, without the health pass, weekly GDP would have been 0.6% lower in France, 0.3% lower in Germany, and 0.5% lower in Italy. This corresponds, for the second half of 2021, to losses of approximately 6 billion euros in France, 1.4 billion euros in Germany and 2.1 billion euros in Italy.