France pledges to speed up jab rollout
FRANCE’S government pledged to pick up the pace with quicker inoculation to a broader array of healthcare workers starting next week after coming under fire for a slow rollout of coronavirus vaccinations.
President Emmanuel Macron also intervened in what was becoming an increasingly sharp debate about the slow start of vaccinations against the virus in his country.
Mr Macron used his traditional New Year’s address to the nation to promise that he will personally ensure there is no unnecessary heel-dragging.
The French leader said he would not allow “an unjustified slowness, for bad reasons, to take root”.
Before Mr Macron spoke, his health minister tweeted that shots would be offered from Monday to healthcare workers aged 50 and older.
Only a few hundred people received vaccines against Covid-19 in the days after a 78-year-old in a long-term care facility got the first shot last Sunday. Consent requirements have slowed the process, with officials also treading cautiously because of widespread scepticism in France around the safety of the rapidly developed vaccines.
But critics increasingly are accusing health officials of being overly cautious.
The National Academy of Medicine said the slow start “is difficult to defend”.
France has reported the virusrelated deaths of more than 64,000 people since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, ravers at an underground, curfew-busting New Year’s Eve party that drew at least 2,500 people in western France have attacked the police sent to shut them down.
They torched one of the police vehicles and injured officers with volleys of bottles and stones, officials said.
Ravers in hundreds of vehicles started converging on hangars in Lieuron, Brittany, on Thursday night to party into the new year, the regional government said.
Police and their vehicles were attacked when they tried to stop the ravers from installing their party gear, it said.
Some officers suffered light injuries, the statement said.
Yesterday morning, 2,500 ravers from France and abroad were still partying, circled by a reinforced police presence, it said.
In Belgium, the death toll of a coronavirus outbreak in a care home linked to a Father Christmas party for the elderly last month has reached 27.
The Mol care centre had organised a visit on December 4, but there is a possibility the actor who played Santa could have been a super spreader of Covid-19 unbeknown to himself.
The municipality said on New Year’s Eve that a 27th person had died but the outbreak was finally stabilising. Belgium has been badly hit by the pandemic with 19,441 deaths so far.
The Mol municipality said two weeks ago the party would have been barred had local authorities known about it. At the last count, the care home had 88 infections, including 42 among the staff.
Initially, the actor had been pinpointed as the source of the outbreak, but subsequent scientific research has not been fully conclusive.