PAPEETE, France: Emmanuel Macron urged Polynesians, but also all French people, to be vaccinated, by visiting the main hospital in the archipelago immediately after his arrival in Tahiti on Saturday evening (Sunday morning in Paris).
“I want to send out a very strong message to call on everyone to be vaccinated because we see it in all latitudes: when we are vaccinated, we are protected and we hardly broadcast any more, in any case much less, the virus “, declared the Head of State in front of the carers of the Hospital Center of French Polynesia.
He thus “welcomed” that France is preparing to pass “probably in the next few hours the milestone of 40 million first-time vaccinated”, which did not seem possible “for several weeks”. “There is a strong acceleration, we must continue because there are still doses (of vaccine) available,” he insisted.
Arrived from Tokyo, where he attended the opening of the Olympics, Emmanuel Macron also returned, in front of journalists, to the new day of mobilization of opponents of the health pass and / or vaccination which brought together more than 160,000 people, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
“Each and every one is free to express themselves in peace, with respect for the other”, he underlined. But “the freedom where I owe nothing to anyone does not exist” and this “rests on a sense of reciprocal duty”. “If tomorrow you infect your father, your mother or myself, I am a victim of your freedom when you had the possibility of having something to protect you and me. And in the name of your freedom you may go. be having a serious form (of the virus) and you will arrive at this hospital. It is all these personnel who will have to take care of you and perhaps give up taking someone else (…) that’s not freedom, it’s called irresponsibility, selfishness, “he argued.
He further called for the parliamentary debate on the health pass, which continued on Sunday, “to take place in peace and efficiency”, “until we have a duly voted text which will be submitted to the Constitutional Council”.
“Tired”
The director of the hospital center, Claude Panero, explained to Emmanuel Macron how he had reorganized to face the epidemic, including the construction of a reception room in the parking lot. Some 10,500 people have passed through the Covid sector, including 250 in emergencies, for a population of 280,000 inhabitants for the whole of French Polynesia. After several months of calm, “it has been going back very very clearly for two weeks,” she said.
Despite the many doses available and encouragement from the local government to get vaccinated, less than 30% of Polynesians have already been vaccinated. “The message is: vaccinate, vaccinate! There is everything you need, we have the doses, we now need the will”, explained to the president the local Minister of Health, Doctor Jacques Raynal.
French Polynesia is an autonomous overseas community in terms of health, but it was able to count on state aid, in particular with the mobilization of the health reserve: several dozen nurses came to support the hospital at the height of the health crisis.
A staff representative stressed that the caregivers were “tired” and that the reinforcements that came during the first wave today showed “much less enthusiasm”. “I just hope that the permanent staff are not going to resign,” she worried.
Covid-19 has killed 145 in French Polynesia, where it is more difficult to control due to the dispersal of 118 islands and atolls and the prevalence of comorbidities, such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
At the end of his visit to the hospital, the Head of State announced to caregivers a “strengthening of the cancer strategy” in Polynesia with new cooperation, for example with the Bordeaux University Hospital. He did not announce the creation of a Cancer Institute, as the local government hoped.
Upon arrival at the airport, Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by Foreign Minister Sébastien Lecornu, was greeted according to local tradition by two “oreros”, Tekava Dauphin and Tuariki Teai, artists specializing in the art of declamation. in Tahitian. The teenagers welcomed him, stressing that the Polynesian people “waited for his words” and “believed in hope”.
The president, whose first trip to this archipelago of the South Pacific, had to postpone a visit scheduled for 2020 due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
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