Parliament definitively adopted on Sunday, by a final vote of the Assembly, the bill establishing the vaccination pass, which the government wants to implement as quickly as possible in the face of the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic. A new device that involves several changes as some specialists foresee the end of the pandemic due to the Omicron variant. Europe 1 takes stock.
“Avoid serious forms”
This vaccination pass only concerns people over 16 and works like the health pass. From now on, it will be necessary to be able to justify a vaccination status or a Covid-19 recovery certificate of less than 6 months to access leisure activities, restaurants and bars, fairs or interregional public transport. A negative test will no longer suffice, except to access health facilities and services.
Identity checks may be carried out to verify that you do not present a false vaccination pass. It will then be necessary to show an official document with your photograph, such as the identity card or the Vitale card. These checks are also not mandatory and restaurateurs have already indicated that they do not want to apply them.
Invited to Europe Midi on Monday, Benjamin Davido, infectious disease specialist and Covid-19 referent medical director at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches, considered that this device is “a good thing”. “It is obvious that if we had been able to put it in place before, it would have had a strong benefit and a strong impact because it will not escape anyone that with Omicron, even having received the three doses we can contaminate ourselves. But again, the challenge is to avoid serious forms,” he said.
A virus that will become seasonal?
While the president of Pfizer projected this Monday in Le Figaro a return to “normal life”, the infectiologist did not object to this hypothesis. “I think that we have a lot of elements after two years of pandemic to think that this virus will become seasonal. In particular because the Omicron wave seems to be extremely contaminating and could give the conditions for collective immunity, in particular on a population little or not at all vulnerable which, in absolute terms, should not be subject to vaccination in its entirety by the end of the year”, continued Benjamin Davido.
According to him, from next fall it will be necessary to prepare for waves like the flu each season. “We will protect the most fragile French people. And that means that we will use these more targeted test techniques, in particular on people at risk and in the hospital, as we manage other diseases in infectiology, in particular respiratory diseases “, he explained.
Asked about Paxlovid, the anti-Covid-19 pill from the Pfizer laboratory, Benjamin Davido finally felt that the first question concerns the reduction in contagiousness. “The problem today is that we are facing an epidemic with 300,000 cases per day. But we know that there are rather 1 million, 50% of which are asymptomatic. And when this is the case, you cannot be eligible for any treatment since you have no symptoms. This means in my opinion that there will be no fountain of youth in the face of this disease. This will be an additional element to help doctors for those who have failed to respond to vaccination and who are immunocompromised.”