December 21st, local time, French Health Minister Verran said that the country will start the coronavirus vaccination on December 27.
On the 21st, Veran wrote on his Twitter, “This Sunday we will start vaccination in France. First, vaccines will be given to the most vulnerable groups.”
French Prime Minister Castel said on the 16th that France can start vaccination as long as the European Drug Administration finally approves the first batch of coronavirus vaccines on the 21st.
Since most of the coronavirus vaccines require secondary injections, France plans to stockpile about 200 million doses of vaccines, which can be vaccinated for 100 million people.
Castella said that according to the three-phase vaccination strategy previously proposed by the government, the first phase will start from the last week of December, if conditions permit, focusing on the elderly living in nursing homes, involving about 1 million people, and lasting about six to eight weeks; the second phase is mainly for the elderly at home and medical machines.
The construction personnel, etc. involve about 14 million people; the third phase will wait until the end of next spring, when vaccination will be “open to all”.
According to the French health department survey, only 53% of French respondents currently expressed their willingness to be vaccinated, which is significantly lower than the 64% of those who were willing to vaccinated in July.
On December 20th local time, according to data released by the French Public Health Agency (SPF), in the past 24 hours, 12,799 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in France, a decrease of nearly 5,000 from the previous day; the number of new related deaths was 131.
On the 20th, the number of patients in intensive care units in France was 2,745, an increase of 27 cases from the previous day, but it has dropped significantly compared with the peak of the second wave of the epidemic (4903 cases recorded on November 16).
On the 20th, according to French BFM TV, after the United Kingdom, France also found cases related to new strains of COVID-19.
At present, the French government has announced a complete suspension of flights and trains with the United Kingdom, and the ban will last for at least 48 hours.
