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Paris (AFP) – The French government announced this Thursday a booster vaccination campaign against covid-19 for those over 18 years of age, five months after their last injection, and ruled out resorting to confinement and curfew again despite the worsening of the pandemic .
Vaccination of children between 5 and 11 years old against the coronavirus is ruled out for the moment, but “if the decision is made, it will not start before the beginning of 2022 in any case,” the French Minister of Health explained at a press conference. , Olivier Véran.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved this Thursday the Pfizer vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years old.
France is entering a new campaign to toughen measures against the pandemic, given the “explosive” upsurge in positive cases, the minister explained.
The use of a mask is once again mandatory inside any public place, and the validity of the negative covid-19 tests will be a maximum of 24 hours, instead of 72 hours.
The current wave of coronavirus, the fifth in France since the start of the pandemic, “is incontestably stronger, longer (….) than this summer,” the minister said.
But “we can face it without resorting to the most coercive measures,” Veran added.
At the moment there will be no “early closing of shops or travel restrictions,” he said.
The number of cases is increasing very rapidly: 32,591 positives had been registered as of Wednesday, the highest level since April 24.
For the moment, this new wave has not represented an uncontrolled increase in hospitalizations. The government attributes that figure to the good percentage of vaccination, higher than 75%.
France had lost 118,705 lives to covid-19 as of this Wednesday.
Reverse in schools
The booster dose of the covid-19 vaccines was already authorized in France for those over 65 years of age, people at risk and health personnel.
This new announcement “in practice affects 25 million French people, 6 million of whom have already received their booster dose,” the minister explained.
“Therefore, there are 19 million French people who are eligible for the booster dose and we are asking them to be vaccinated in the next two months,” the minister said.
The French accessed their health passport with one or (mostly) two doses of vaccines, and now they must therefore update that document, which has become essential in daily life.
To enter the cinema, a museum, a restaurant and other public places, the French must show that passport, in the form of a QR code.
However, the education authorities decided to reverse the restrictions on primary schools.
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From now on, a class will no longer be systematically closed when a positive case of covid appears. Only the cases concerned should be quarantined at home, explained the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer.
“Our compass remains the priority of an open school,” Blanquer noted.
There are currently 8,500 classes closed in France, up from 4,100 closed on November 19.
© 2021 AFP
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