The European Medicines Agency delivered a report on Thursday March 18 assessing the AstraZeneca vaccine safe and effective. Following the conclusions of the European regulator, Jean Castex has announced during the press briefing that injections were to resume this Friday afternoon. The Prime Minister is also to get the vaccine inoculate to set an example. The vaccination campaign is to resume in France, as 5,630,671 people have been given the first dose of coronavirus vaccine, as of March 17, naming 8.40% of the French population.
According to head of mathematics projections of infectious diseases at Institut Pasteur and member of the Scientific Committee, vaccination “curbs the spread of the virus a little”, but “is still too weak” to curb hospitalizations. This is what stated Simon Cauchemez on March 18 in Le Figaro.
“We consider that reinforced protection of elderly people could enable to reduce mortality, but the impact is not enough to ease controlling measures off in other age categories”, he added.
According to Institut Pasteur’s projections, available here, “collective effort remains necessary”, before detailing that it is “by reducing contacts between young people” the epidemic will be able to withdraw.
It remains now to be seen if the new restrictions, and lockdown in 16 departments, might be able to lower Covid-19 hospitalization rate in the coming weeks.
