The government has one hope: that “end of March-beginning of April, we can lift the vaccination pass.” At the end of the Council of Ministers, Wednesday February 9, the government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, spoke about the possibilities offered in the medium term by the decline in Covid-19 contamination. “There are reasons to hope that by this time horizon the situation will have improved sufficiently for us to be able to lift these final measures”he explained.
Remarks which echo those of the president of the council of orientation of the vaccine strategy, Alain Fischer, questioned earlier Wednesday in front of the mission of information of the Senate. The health situation could evolve quickly enough in the coming weeks to justify ending the system “by the end of March-beginning of April”, had declared the professor of immunology, specifying that it would nevertheless be necessary to reach an incidence rate “at least 10 or 20 times lower than today, and especially that the current hospital overload has disappeared.”
Referring to the contamination figures, Gabriel Attal rejoiced: “The frank decline, we are there.” Tuesday evening, Public Health France still counted 235,267 new cases, against 416,896 seven days earlier. The average number of cases over the week – the most reliable indicator of the real trend in recorded contaminations – also decreased, to 211,716. In hospital, 3,555 Covid patients were in critical care, compared to 3,751 last Tuesday. Finally, the incidence rate rose to 2,498 contaminations per 100,000 inhabitants on Tuesday.
Asked about the calls made on social networks to “rolling in Paris” against the vaccination pass, the spokesman said the government was “lucid, perfectly aware that there is a weariness vis-à-vis this epidemic and the measures which continue to apply”. “There are more than a few hundred thousand people who are tired of living with this virus and, in France as everywhere in the world, political movements, often radical, have sought to capitalize on this weariness”added Gabriel Attal.
Corn “France is probably one of the countries in Europe that has taken the fewest restrictive measures, which hinder the freedom of its fellow citizens”argued the government spokesman. “We have made this choice to limit the restriction measures as much as possible thanks in particular to the (…) health pass yesterday, to the vaccination pass today”he added, assuring that these measures will be lifted “as soon as the situation improves”.