In his wishes to the French, Thursday, December 31, Emmanuel Macron assured that he would not let “anyone play with safety and the good conditions in which the vaccination must be done”. However, in private, the president is annoyed by the slowness of the campaign which began on December 27, says the JDD.
Referring to a “family walk rhythm”, Emmanuel Macron warns: “It is up to neither the moment nor the French. The Covid-19 pandemic, against which he declared “war” last March, has killed at least 1.8 million people around the world. France, which has not been spared, has nearly 65,000 deaths, and the trend is for an epidemic resumption in France.
A president “not at all satisfied”
“France can and must win this war. She will win it ”, assures the Head of State. His words, reported by the JDD, are harsh: “I wage war in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at night. And I expect the same commitment from everyone. However, there, that does not go. […] It must change fast and strong and it will change fast and strong. “
“We all felt that he was not at all satisfied,” blows a relative of the Head of State after the health defense council Tuesday morning. The president wants vaccination to speed up in the country. “He was very clear”, admits a minister before adding: “We assume to start by vaccinating in nursing homes […], but that cannot be an excuse for unwarranted delays. “
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A flood of criticism
Bureaucratic worries poison the speed of the campaign. Thus, of the 100 super-freezers ordered to store the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, 10 are still awaiting validation from state services, reports the JDD.
What annoy the president, who would have put “a kick in the ass” of “the regional health agency of Ile-de-France and the Ministry of Health”, says a close friend of Emmanuel Macron. The government is facing massive criticism over the slow pace of the vaccination campaign. Around 350 people were vaccinated in France at the end of December, according to CovidTracker, against nearly 190,000 in Germany and 72,000 in Italy.
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Acceleration tracks
Faced with the flood of criticism, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, drastically changed his speech. If he defended this record on Tuesday by ensuring that one should not confuse “speed and haste”, two days later, he announced the vaccine to health professionals over 50 years old.
The request for consent, previously two weeks prior to the injection, can now be given orally during the consultation. The government also plans to draw from the reserve of “second doses”, until now reserved for nursing homes, to vaccinate just in time.
