The French government announced Friday a tightening of the conditions of access to the health passport, to face the variant Omicron, “which will become dominant from the beginning of the year 2022”.
The announcement was made at the end of a health defense council that met to consider new measures in the face of the lightning fifth wave of COVID-19 and the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The Omicron variant, whose speed of propagation is “lightning around us in Europe”, “will spread very quickly to the point of becoming dominant from the start of 2022” in France, announced Prime Minister Jean Castex.
Consequently, the health passport will be transformed at the beginning of the year into a “vaccination passport”, which can only be activated with a complete vaccination schedule and no longer a simple result of a negative screening test, as in Quebec.
“From now on, only vaccination will be valid in the pass “, Insisted the head of government after a health defense council.
The health passport is requested, among other things, in restaurants, bars, shopping centers, entertainment venues and museums.
Fight against fakes
This measure will be the subject of a bill presented at the beginning of January to Parliament, in which will also appear the will to “toughen the conditions of control and sanctions against false pass », Underlined Jean Castex.
A network which made it possible to create between 5,000 and 10,000 false health passports, for an estimated profit of two million euros, was also partly dismantled in early December, after facts noted in Metz (east), has learned Friday AFP from a source close to the case.
“It is not admissible that the refusal of a few million French people to be vaccinated puts the life of an entire country at risk and undermines the daily lives of a vast majority of French people who have played along since the start of this crisis. », He hammered.
“We assume to put stress on the unvaccinated, because the critical care and resuscitation services of our hospitals are filled, for the most part, with unvaccinated people,” said Jean Castex.
The deadline for accessing the vaccine booster will also be reduced to four months instead of five.
More than 121,000 people have died from COVID-19 in France since the start of the pandemic, out of a population of 67 million. Almost 90% of the population aged over 12 is vaccinated, one of the highest vaccination coverage in the European Union.