“If we want to be able to engage in the vaccination of children, very clearly, we must finish that of adults. Unfortunately, things are not going fast enough”, estimates Sunday, December 5 on franceinfo the infectious disease doctor Benjamin Davido. While a health defense council will be held on Monday, December 6, it takes stock of the various measures envisaged to deal with the fifth wave of Covid-19.
franceinfo: Vaccination of 5-11 year olds likely to develop serious forms could start by the end of December and that of other children by January. What is the good answer ?
Benjamin Davido: The two. I think that we must distinguish the vaccination of immunocompromised children at risk of severe form of the coronavirus, which is indisputable, from that of the general population. Then there is the question of the incidence rate which is very high in children, especially in 5-11 year olds, and which questions the circulation of the virus between generations. Despite the return of the mask to school, we can clearly see that there is still a reservoir of virus. However, today, we have a vaccine which has a modest efficacy on transmission but against which the booster campaign makes it possible to restore very high efficacy. Obviously, the emergency is the vaccination of adults. And then, the question of the Omicron variant, for which I hope that we will have the answer on vaccine efficacy within ten days. When we have the answer, we can ask ourselves the question of starting a first dose campaign in children from 5 to 11 years old. And so, you see the timeline brings us to January.
Could the Christmas holidays be brought forward by a week like in Belgium?
I don’t think so. It is a little contradictory to everything the government had explained to us, namely that the weight of this pandemic should not be placed on children and in particular on the closure of schools. In reality, I think that if we decide on such a measure, it is not a measure that is sustainable. Today, we need measures that slow down the virus in a sustainable way over time and at least until the end of this wave, that is to say until the end of winter until March. . So it’s hard to see how to change. A week’s vacation, in one sense or another, will not allow the virus to circulate in children and other age groups on a lasting basis.
Regarding the vaccination booster campaign, is it going fast enough?
If we want to be able to get into the vaccination of children, very clearly, we must finish that of adults. Today, unfortunately, things are not going fast enough because we are in a hurry at the same time by the variant, by the end of year celebrations and by an evolution that can be qualified as exponential of contamination of more than 50,000 cases. The virus is circulating very strongly. It also circulates in vaccinated people who, I remind you, will only exceptionally have a severe hospital form. We must therefore go further. It is necessary to make the vaccination booster so that the vaccinated are largely protected and transmit less and do not have to weigh the burden of possible restrictions, and then, that we manage to engage on the 6 to 7 million French people who do not have not yet had a first dose.
Does the Omicron variant spread very fast?
I think it’s hard to say. Unfortunately, we are dependent on the time scale. We will know by the end of the year, if he has this ability both to develop and to take precedence over the Delta variant because, I remind you, the contaminations and the hospital forms that will happen to it. hospital between December 24 and 31 will be infections due to the Delta variant. So, one must always remain extremely careful when talking about the Omicron variant. For the moment, there are not enough cases and we can welcome it in Europe so that we can consider predictions on its transmissibility, its virulence and its capacity for progression.