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It’s official: the fourth dose of vaccine is now recommended for over 80s who received their booster dose more than three months ago. Not compulsory and not linked to the vaccination pass, it is however recommended for the most fragile, in the face of the rise in the number of new daily cases.
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran said he had seized the High Authority for Health (HAS) on the interest of a fourth dose. It is now official: the fourth dose of vaccine against Covid-19 is recommended for those over 80 years old. Explanations.
4.1 million people including 3.1 million with three doses
The announcement was made by Prime Minister Jean Castex in an interview with our colleagues from Parisian, following the recommendations of the scientific council. The French eligible for this fourth dose are therefore those over the age of 80 who had their booster dose more than three months ago, and residents of nursing homes. The Prime Minister specifies that this fourth dose will also be open to immunocompromised people who did not have access to it until now.
A reminder simply recommended
France therefore joins Israel, Denmark and even Germany, which have already formalized the use of a fourth dose. This second booster will only be recommended. And without this injection, it will always be possible to go to the restaurant or the cinema, since the vaccination pass is suspended from today.
“The improvement in the hospital and our high vaccination coverage lead us to maintain the lifting of the measures” explains Jean Castex, who also indicates that “the scientific council tells us that it is above all the BA2 subvariant who is at the origin of this epidemic rebound”.
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Immune memory defect
For the Prime Minister, this new variant is “more transmissible than the original Omicron, but it does not appear to be more dangerous“. However, For Jean Castex, it is necessary “supporting the most vulnerable people” and so “open now the fourth dose to over 80s who have received their booster dose for more than three months, who are facing a progressive loss of their immunity“.
In any case, this is what the Council for the Orientation of the Vaccine Strategy suggests, which relies on several observations to recommend this fourth dose, in particular on the fact that “the protection against severe forms conferred in the elderly by a booster would decrease over time”.
For Public Health France, “people over the age of 80 would have little or no immune memory following an anti-Covid-19 vaccination as opposed to the lower classes. These people are therefore dependent on a practice of frequent boosters in order to maintain good immunity.“.