> A THREE ACTS CAMPAIGN
Priority to nursing homes : following the recommendations of the High Authority for Health (HAS), vaccination begins with retirement homes, whose residents accumulate risks because of their age and living in a community.
The first people vaccinated this Sunday in Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis, are ten residents over 75 years of a long-term care hospital unit and a volunteer caregiver.
This first phase should then gain momentum: next week it concerns 23 establishments in the regions of Paris, Lyon, Lille and Tours, before intensifying to reach around a hundred places in the first two weeks of January.
Objective by the end of February: one million vaccinated among the oldest and most vulnerable, individuals and caregivers, in the 7,000 nursing homes and other similar establishments. Still, it will be necessary to obtain informed consents, which does not look like an easy task.
A second phase for all retirees : it will then be the turn of “all retirees over 65According to the government. The goal is to have vaccinated a total of 15 million people “on the horizon this summer“, Matignon said on Saturday, a deadline slightly delayed compared to what had been envisaged.
The second phase should concern, in order, people aged 75 and over, then those aged 65 and over and health and medico-social professionals who are vulnerable because of their age or their health.
Then will come “the time of mass vaccination”. MBut here again, among the remaining 50 million French people, there will be priority audiences: people aged 50 to 64, “professionals in sectors essential to the functioning of the country in an epidemic period»(Security, education, food), vulnerable and precarious people and those who support them, “People who live in confined accommodation or closed places“, According to the Ministry of Health.
Then will be concerned “The rest of the adult population“. Minors are not the subject of recommendations because the most advanced clinical studies have not included this population.
AUTHORIZATIONS AND LOGISTICS CHALLENGE
The first vaccine available, injected on Sunday, is the one developed by Pfizer / BioNTech. However, it can be stored at -80 ° and once thawed, it must be injected quickly, in less than five days. Two doses, three weeks apart, are needed.
A logistical challenge for which France is setting up ad hoc freezers, installed on a hundred sites, approximately one per department. Installed “most of the time on hospital sites“, They will provide retirement homes, according to the Minister of Health Olivier Véran. Six logistics platforms, such as the Lille University Hospital, spread over the territory come in reinforcement.
The progress of the vaccination campaign will also depend on the actual timing of marketing authorizations for other vaccines, and delivery of doses.
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