” It is not a coming wave, not even a tsunami. But a wall warns The Parisian. Vertical, steep. The Omicron scenario is one of the darkest considered by epidemiologists. It is enough to be convinced of it to look on the side of Denmark and Great Britain. The number of contaminations there doubles every two or three days. An average patient infects ten other people. Applied to France, where 10% of Covid-19 cases can already be attributed to this ultra-contagious newcomer, we should count, 80,000 infections on Christmas Eve, and 640,000 on New Year’s Eve! Add to that, sigh again Le Parisien, critical care beds already 90% occupied (by Covid and non-Covid patients), fewer caregivers, and 5.7 million unvaccinated French people. The barrier seems insurmountable. Here we are again in February 2020, facing an epidemic with blurred and uncontrollable contours. “
Weariness and worry
And there is like ” a feeling of weariness and exhaustion in the population, breath Release, faced with a virus which does not stop mutating and which therefore continues to spread at high speed. Despite the indisputable protection that vaccination constitutes, concern is setting in, given the progression of the Omicron variant, on the day after a holiday. The United Kingdom is already under water, the Netherlands re-pronounced the annoying word “reconfinement” on Saturday, Germany is padlocking … And the French government now openly assumes it to intensify the pressure even more strongly on the part of the population that is still not vaccinated. “
Our best weapon: vaccination
And we must not procrastinate, launches Le Figaro : “ faced with a sixth wave looming, while the fifth is not yet over, vaccination remains our best weapon. Because, despite the incredible immune evasion capacities of the South African strain, studies tell us that we are as well protected against the Omicron variant with three doses as it is against the Delta variant with two doses. This is good news which should collectively encourage us to make the effort to receive a third injection as quickly as possible. Because Omicron is breaking in at full speed, and will not give us time to hesitate. “
And it is in this sense, point The cross, one “Bill tabled at the beginning of January will propose to transform the health pass into a vaccination pass. The government thus assumes to put increased pressure on the unvaccinated.. “
6 million unvaccinated …
Exactly, ” who are the unvaccinated? », Asks Provence. They are 6 million. ” How to explain this refusal of a vaccine which saves lives, relieves the hospitals, of which 8 and a half billion doses have already been injected in the world? First, there are the people who are forgotten by the system. Around 2 million French people who are remote, precarious, isolated, have difficulty accessing information and healthcare (…). There are of course also the militant anti-vax, those who deny the reality of the epidemic, those who sink into fake-news (…). And then there are… all the others. French people from all walks of life who do not stick to these profiles and often see themselves as resistance fighters. “
Provence take the example of this ” former local right-wing elected official, Alain, who has nothing of a rebel but who explains that he does not trust this vaccine which, he says, “is not one”, “put on the market in the experimental phase “, according to him. At 72, he claims the right to choose what is injected into his body. (…) And to keep a social life, Alain got himself a fake health pass… ”
Is the political debate stifled by the pandemic?
Finally, the virus was invited into the presidential campaign, underlines for its part The Charente Libre : ” the wave of contamination and its consequences risk sweeping away any substantive debate by putting the health emergency at the forefront, warns the Charentais daily. The power in place could find its account as long as the response to the pandemic garners the support of the greatest number. But the natural play of oppositions will not fail to stir up antagonisms on questions which require common sense and solidarity. The debate in the Assembly in January on the obligation of the vaccine pass could set the tone for the three months that will remain before the vote on April 10. And the worst, concludes The Charente Libre, would be that such a scenario arises a record abstention. “