Coronavirus in France: wave of criticism against Macr …

A week after launching the coronavirus vaccination device with great fanfare and with the shadow of the second wave lurking across Europe, the French government has applied less than 1% of the 560,000 vaccines received for the first step in the fight against the pandemic.

The fact was revealed by a sector of the opposition to the Conservative government Emmanuel Macron, who in the face of the crisis called a government meeting to analyze how to speed up the vaccination process in the country.

“Today we are facing a state scandal”, said Jean Rottner, president of the Grand Est region, which is among the most affected by the pandemic.

If France began to vaccinate on December 27 in nursing homes, as of January 1, only 516 people had received the vaccinecompared to more than 200,000 in Germany during the same period and around 1 million in the United Kingdom.

France has received 560 thousand doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine from the end of December and starting this week, he will receive half a million doses per week for his almost 67 million inhabitants.

Besides being a traditionally anti-vaccine country, one of the keys to this slow start is that the vaccination process in France consists of several stages. Before being able to be vaccinated, the French must go to a first appointment to detect possible contraindications and give their informed consent.

“Today getting vaccinated is more complicated than buying a car», Denounced Jean Rottner, member of the Republican opposition party (LR), which, with members of different sectors of French political life, demanded an acceleration of the vaccination campaign.

On December 31, the president Macron had warned that he would not allow “For the wrong reasons, unwarranted slowness is setting in” in the vaccination campaign. However, the wish was not granted and, given the amount of criticism, he called a campaign follow-up meeting with key members of his cabinet.

According to the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, the French president has expressed his dissatisfaction with the slow start of the campaign against the virus in recent days. “We are at a family walking pace, which is not up to the French,” he said in a private interview.

The order was clear: “I am at war in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and at night” and “I expect the same commitment from all. It’s not enough. This has to change quickly and drastically, ”he said.

In France, the number of deaths from the pandemic has exceeded 65,000 people. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal yesterday announced an acceleration in the weekly arrival of vaccines and the transfer of doses to retirement homes.

The Executive also decided to advance the vaccination of health workers over 50, which was scheduled for February, but for many these changes are still insufficient and some are asking to open the vaccination to all volunteers.