France bets on the third dose from the age of 18 to avoid a new confinement due to coronavirus

All French people over 18 years of age can be vaccinated with a third booster dose against the corinavirus, as announced this Thursday by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran.

“From now on the reminder dose will be open to all adults aged 18 years from five months after the last vaccination”Véran said in the announcement of the measures taken this Wednesday in the Ministerial Council, chaired by Emmanuel Macron, to face the fifth wave and the evident deterioration of the health situation in the country.

According to Véran, there are 19 million French people eligible for this new dose who will have to access it in the next two months.

He added that there will be enough vaccines that can be requested from family doctors, nurses or in some 1,200 mass vaccination centers that will be opened or reactivated in the coming days.

The minister also announced a tightening of the health passport necessary to access most public places, which states that the person is vaccinated or has a negative test.

Until now, this test had a duration of 72 hours, but the minister reduced it to 24 hours, while reminding that it will continue to be paid for those not vaccinated.

Véran assured that the mask will once again be mandatory in all closed public places and appealed to maintain protection measures, such as hand washing or social distance, and considered that with all this device “France can overcome this fifth wave without taking tougher measures ”.

The minister ruled out, for now, confinement, early closure of shops or travel restrictions, because unlike the previous waves, France has almost nine out of ten adults vaccinated.

“Without the vaccine we would be submerged by this new wave, because the delta variant is more contagious and we would be confined”, said Véran, who indicated that the number of hospitalized not vaccinated is ten times higher than those vaccinated.

The minister added that, along with all those tools to combat covid, they will soon have two treatments that are having “encouraging results.”

One, injectable, will be reserved for hospitalized patients with severe forms of the disease, while the other, a pill that will be available in pharmacies from December although it will require a prescription, divides the risk of hospitalization by two if taken within five days after contagion.

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