is it true that 40% of the unvaccinated “do not have access to vaccines”, as several presidential candidates say?

What is the profile of the approximately five million unvaccinated against Covid-19? For several days, politicians have been citing one figure in particular. The latest is Christiane Taubira, Tuesday January 18 on France Inter: “What worries me are, what Inserm says, the 40% of unvaccinated people who do not have access to vaccines.” Christiane Taubira is not the only presidential candidate to give this figure. Jean-Luc Mélenchon also cited it, as did several rebellious elected officials. Except that Inserm has never published precisely this figure.

#vaccination : it is necessary to convince and not to constrain. Inserm tells us that 40% of unvaccinated people are distant from public policies. We need additional resources on the outgoing policy to respond to the crisis of #COVID19. #PublicHearing pic.twitter.com/XPChfy7cdf

— Alexis Corbiere (@alexiscorbiere) January 10, 2022

You can look in all the Inserm studies, none advance such a figure. The only recent publication which evokes the profile of the non-vaccinated is a six-page note which is also interested in the vaccination of children and the Tous Anti-covid application.

At the very end of this note, there is a short paragraph titled “Who still doesn’t want to get vaccinated?” In particular, we can read that “access to care and resources seem to be decisive”, but the 40% figure never appears.

To fully understand, franceinfo called the researcher behind this note. Jérémy Ward explained to us that these people far from the healthcare system are mainly isolated elderly people, immigrants who speak French badly or even homeless people. Above all, he confirmed to us that this figure of 40%, he did not write it down. But he said it in an interview to give “an order of magnitude”.

“It’s a shady assessment. We know it’s a big minority and a big minority is roughly between 25 and 40%. But that figure doesn’t exist, and it can’t exist because Data are not available.”

Jeremy Ward

at franceinfo

Clearly, this figure of 40% does not come from an Inserm study, but from a researcher who wanted to estimate a complex phenomenon and today impossible to quantify precisely.