While pharmacies have just been authorized to vaccinate with AstraZeneca, the government has decided to suspend the vaccine. The campaign is also ending among general practitioners, temporarily.
[Mis à jour le 15 mars 2021 à 17h28] This Monday March 15 gave the starting signal for vaccinations in pharmacies with the only AstraZeneca vaccine. This was without counting on the suspicions of thrombosis formations after the injection of the vaccine. France has just decided to suspend the use of the Anglo-Swedish serum pending the opinion of the European Medicines Agency tomorrow afternoon. The vaccination in pharmacies and general practitioners stop dead with this decision.
If vaccinations are allowed again with AstraZeneca, they will join their efforts with those of dedicated centers and general practitioners, and will be subject to the same vaccination schedule. Unless there are further restrictions on the use of the serum, the people affected will remain the same: people over 75 and people 50 to 74 who have co-morbidities and people with serious illnesses between 18 and 49 years old. The Ministry of Health has assured that they were more than 18,000 to have volunteered to receive 36,000 AstraZeneca doses, or two vials per pharmacies.
Regarding the implementation of the device, the vaccination in pharmacies is free but can only be done by appointment, the pharmacies are free to organize themselves as they wish: reservation by phone, on site or by the intermediary of the Covid-Pharma platform. All you have to do is present your identity card, vital card and answer an administrative questionnaire as well as a health questionnaire before vaccination. The injection then takes place in a dedicated room. The patient should wait 15 minutes after vaccination. In principle, all pharmacies that practice influenza vaccination can also inject the anti-Covid vaccine.
The suspension of AstraZeneca also temporarily prevents vaccination in general practitioners put in place since February 25. While some select and contact their most vulnerable patients to give them priority, others wait for the slots to be reserved but ensure that patients meet the criteria to qualify for vaccination. For the time being, they must all cancel the appointments or move them until they know the opinion of the health authority on whether or not to resume vaccinations with AstraZeneca. After a first slowdown due to delays in deliveries, the decision stops the campaign in the city offices. The notice expected Tuesday afternoon will decide on the resumption of vaccinations. In this case, making an appointment is possible through a platform such as Doctolib and Maiia or by contacting a doctor directly.
The Ministry of Health has deployed an online service on the Sante.fr site, making it possible to very quickly identify a vaccination center around your home. Find the device below, very easy to use: just enter an address to find the list of the nearest vaccination locations.
Registrations for people wishing to be vaccinated, subject to being eligible for vaccination, are open. For the time being, only people over 75 (nursing homes and outside nursing homes) and caregivers can use it. It is possible to make an appointment on one of the three platforms chosen by the government, centralized on the sante.fr site (Doctolib, Maiia and Keldoc). It is also possible to make an appointment by telephone, by dialing 0 800 009 110.
People wishing to be vaccinated and who are not residents of nursing home – those who are can benefit from an in situ vaccination – must go to centers, open on a departmental scale. There will gradually be 600 centers by the end of January, promised the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, specifying that “each municipality will not have its own center, it would be inconsistent given the number of doses and of people to be vaccinated”.
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As soon as the appointment is made, a form will then be submitted in order to obtain checks on the patient’s profile and thus verify whether the vaccination against Covid-19 is not incompatible. Allergies, medical treatment … This is the kind of information that will be checked. This will be the last step before vaccination, the government having simplified the procedure by not making the pre-vaccination consultation with his doctor compulsory. It will then be necessary to wait between three and six weeks before going again to a center in order to carry out the second injection inherent in the anti-Covid vaccine as it exists today. Note that for the moment and if the vaccines continue to present the same indications and the same contraindications, there will be no need to choose this or that vaccine, they will be offered indifferently.
Vaccination in France is ongoing, but for many people, the wait is still required before the injection. To have visibility on your vaccine eligibility, the site Omnicalculator has set up a simulation allowing to obtain a more or less precise date, according to your age and your profile, all this according to the calendar set up by the government. For example, for a 30-year-old man with no particular health problem and who is not a health professional, the vaccination will take place between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.
Vaccination began on December 27 in France, it only concerns adults for the time being. France has a potential of 200 million doses, which can vaccinate 100 million people knowing that the vaccine requires two doses a few weeks apart. France will spend 1.5 billion euros for these vaccines, allocated to the social security budget. As a reminder, 70% of the population should be vaccinated, according to the scientific journal Nature, to achieve collective immunity.
| Phase | concerned public | Vaccine used |
| Phase 1, until February 1 | At least 1 million people are concerned: – elderly people residing in a retirement home or in care units – healthcare professionals over the age of 50 or with chronic diseases – firefighters and home helpers over 50 years old – people over 75 years old (from January 18) – people at risk suffering from serious pathologies (from January 18) |
Pfizer-BioNTech |
| Phase 2, February and March | Are concerned 14 million people: – first of all people over 75 years old – then people over 65 – nursing staff over the age of 40 |
Pfizer-BioNTech Modern AstraZeneca |
| Phase 3, from April | Are concerned: – first people aged 50 to 64 – National Education staff – vulnerable and precarious people – security personnel – then the entire adult population |
Pfizer-BioNTech Modern AstraZeneca |
The answer is no. Emmanuel Macron, during his speech on November 24, made a commitment to the French. The government’s strategy, which must in spite of everything convince the greatest number to be vaccinated, rather aims to establish a relationship of confidence in this vaccine file, in the face of a population that is particularly reluctant to be vaccinated. The executive thus wishes to establish total transparency on the subject, which will have to participate “in the relationship of trust that the government wishes to establish with the citizens concerning the apprehension in the face of this vaccine”, as slipped a relative of the chief from the State to the Sunday Journal. The government’s task promises to be difficult since, according to an IFOP poll conducted for the JDD, 59% of French people do not want to be vaccinated against coronavirus.
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