LAUNCH OF VACCINATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST COVID-19 IN FRANCE ON SUNDAY 27 DECEMBER

USPA NEWS - The French government is hoping to get around 1 million people vaccinated in nursing homes during January and February, and then a further 14 million-15 million in the wider population between March and June.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved by the French medical regulator on Thursday. France reported just 3,093 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Saturday, sharply down from the more than 20,000 cases on each of the previous two days, figures not seen since Nov. 20. But the seven-day moving average of daily new cases, which evens out reporting irregularities, is at around a one-month high. Since December 27, only 432 vaccination have been made, in a very slow motion, which made the political opposition and even the French president getting angry.

France has a total of 2,550,864 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the fifth-highest tally in the world, while its COVID-19 death toll stands at 62,573, the seventh-highest. In a concerning development, the Health Ministry said on Friday that a man who recently arrived from London had tested positive for a new variant of the virus that has been spreading rapidly in southern England and is thought to be more infectious. Sweden on Saturday also confirmed that it has detected the first case of the new variant in a traveller from the United Kingdom. In Spain, Madrid health authorities said on Saturday they had confirmed four cases of the new variant of the virus, as the country received its first deliveries of the vaccine. “Vaccination will start tomorrow in Spain, coordinated with the rest of Europe,“ Health Minister Salvador Illa wrote on Twitter. “This is the beginning of the end of the pandemic.“ Doses will be taken by air to the Spanish islands and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and by road to other regions of the country, where a total of about 50,000 people have died from the disease. THE FRENCH POPULATION IS REFRACTORY TO VACCINATION (58% DO NOT WANT TO BE VACCINATED)---- The vaccination control has been criticized for the very modest number of vaccines administered (a few hundred, yesterday 332, today 435) in comparison with other European countries, the executive repeats that it is working hard. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal announces an acceleration in the arrival of doses each week and an increase in the means to transfer them to nursing homes. However, vaccination against COVID-19 gives rise to very contradictory reactions among the French, but rather refractory, showing their distrust of the medical profession and also of their governments. This is what the Odoxa survey revealed, which, for Le Figaro and Franceinfo, interviewed 1004 people on December 22 and 23, revealed a high rate resistant to vaccination with a refusal rate of 58%. That is an increase of 8 points compared to the previous month, when the first vaccines were discovered. "Incredibly, in France, the more scientists supposed to praise vaccination talk about vaccines, the less the French want to be vaccinated!", Notes Gaël Sliman, the president of Odoxa, during his analysis of the investigation.