REPORTAGE
Will these devices make it possible to speed up the vaccination campaign, essential to consider a future exit from the coronavirus epidemic? On Wednesday, the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin announced the opening of “38 vaccinodromes” managed by the firefighters, in which “up to 530,000 doses can be injected each week”. And some centers are already in place, such as in Toulouse, where the city’s vaccinodrome opened on Saturday morning. The objective is to carry out 4,000 injections of Pfizer vaccine there throughout the weekend.
Hall 8 of the Toulouse exhibition center was requisitioned, while 80 staff from the CHU, firefighters, but also reservists were mobilized. For Lieutenant-Colonel Sébastien Lamadon-Perié of SDIS, the challenge is to manage the flow of patients. “We must avoid any traffic jam,” he told Europe 1, before describing the course of operations. “People will present themselves at the entrance to the room. We have a logic of walking forward to cross the hall from end to end. They collect a questionnaire before benefiting from the vaccination in the white boxes.”
“The last straight line before the end of the crisis”
Patients then get their vaccination certificate after checking that they have an appointment for the second dose. For Vincent Bounes, the boss of Samu 31, this is a first step. “We are moving to a vaccination on another scale. For the moment we open on weekends, but as soon as we have doses that will arrive, we will probably open every day,” he explains.
“We will try in the coming weeks to open other mega-centers to vaccinate tens of thousands of people per week,” he continues. “It’s the last straight line before the end of the crisis, we have to give everything and we will give everything.”
Slots for the next weekend available Monday
Martine, she is one of the lucky ones who have found an appointment for this weekend, which relieves her. “I can’t wait for this first injection to be made to be protected”, she confides to Europe 1. “I have big little girls that I will see a little more often”.
And from Monday other niches will be offered on the Internet and via the telephone platform to allow 4,000 other patients to be vaccinated next weekend.
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