It doesn’t actually make me feel any better and I am very sorry for any Grans currently living in France - but we don’t seem to be the worst at rolling out the vaccine by a long shot.
I read today that by last Tuesday, France had still only managed to vaccinate 8,000 people, to growing anger in the country.
It seems to be a combination of logistical ineptitude and lack of political courage which has resulted in France languishing at the penultimate spot on the global vaccination tables. By yesterday, 80,000 French citizens had been vaccinated, just ahead of Mexico at 67,468. By comparison the US has vaccinated 6.69 million, Israel 1.69 million and the UK over 1.3 million.
Apparently the French government, despite belatedly enlisting the costly help of consultants from McKinsey, never thought through the supply chain requiring superfreezers capable of stocking the Pfizer vaccine, and by early January had only deployed 24 of the 100-plus available in the country. It had made assumptions that other vaccines that did not require freezers, especially France’s Sanofi, would be available. But Sanofi, despite being one of the six suppliers included in the mass EU purchasing process, gives December as the earliest date by which its vaccine might be fit for distribution.
Then this was compounded by the decision, at every level, to appease French anti-vaxxers. The Ministère de la Santé, alone in the world, concocted a 45-page “vaccination codebook” that made it mandatory to obtain consent during a GP visit, after which four days of “retraction time” were required before anyone was actually vaccinated.
Meanwhile they also decided against opening vaccination centres and further refused to let pharmacists take part. Instead, French vaccination authorities were trotted out to explain that a “slow pace” was much better to “study effects”.
I did not know that there was such a strong anti-vaxx lobby in France, it is estimated that around 50% of the population have indicated they will not have it.
How on earth can we get on top of Covid on a global basis when a developed First-World country seems set to be a weak link in the chain?
Good Morning Saturday 20th April 2024
Estranged Son and Future Granddaughter
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic
