As global infection rate slows, call for 'vaccine passports' in France grows
As global figures for new Covid infections and deaths showed a clear decrease over the past week, with the World Health Organization reporting 16 percent fewer cases, the debate over vaccination passports is gathering pace in France. Key tourism actors, desperate to relaunch their moribund industry, are leading the call.
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The possibility of issuing vaccination passports to those who have completed their Covid inoculation has buoyed hopes of the world's ailing tourism sector, which is desperate to reopen hotels, restaurants and travel services.
Iceland and Israel are already issuing Covid passports. Three international air companies have said they will not accept passengers without them. But the French government remains unenthusiastic.
Daily newspaper Libération reminds readers that it took a decade of intense debate to agree on the biometric passport. Is it realistic to expect to expect an internationally acceptable health certificate by August?, it asks.
Mandatory vaccination?
There is also the danger of being seen to discriminate, since vaccination in France is a voluntary affair. The government is unwilling to appear to put pressure on anyone to be inoculated in order to obtain the necessary passport.
However, wonders Libé, if Greece and Italy open their borders to duly vaccinated American and Chinese tourists, while France remains closed, how long will the two million French people who work in the tourism sector continue to suffer in silence?
As the WHO reported a decline in new global cases and deaths, the situation in France remains "stable but fragile", with the 7-day moving average at around 18,000 new new cases per day, lower than the figure of 20,000 new cases in previous weeks.
French Health Minister Olivier Véran, speaking in the National Assembly on Tuesday, warned that the new coronavirus variants were making any predictions hazardous.
"I hope that 2021 will not be the year of the variants but the year of victory against the pandemic," he told parliament.
New lockdown 'avoidable'
Saying that it was "possible to avoid another national lockdown", Véran has faced opposition from several MPs who fear that the crisis is veering out of control in their constituencies. There have been calls for a more rigorous approach by the government, possibly involving measures better adapted to local conditions.
The mayor of the northern port city of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete, has called for the immediate closure of local schools and colleges in an effort to contain the spread of the highly contagious UK variant. Dunkirk has seen the number of infections double in seven days to 658 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants, the vast majority suffering from the variant.
Schools in Dunkirk are to remain open until the winter holidays, due to begin in northern France on Friday. An extensive local testing programme and additional doses of vaccine have been promised.
Vergriete is angry that local conditions are being ignored by central government. "You get the impression that all regions are being treated in the same way," he says. "But it's obvious that there are differences, totally different health conditions."
The situation is similar in the eastern region of Moselle, where more than one-third of new cases are infected with the so-called South African variant.
Despite these regional complications, the Paris government maintains the policy of refusing "preventative lockdown".
The health minister insists that there is a complete absence of agreement on how best to continue the fight against the virus, either among local representatives or within the scientific community. National policy will thus remain unchanged for the time being, says Véran, stressing that the door remains open to allow suitable local adaptations.
Staying the course
The government's health advisory council, the HCSP, is scheduled to meet on Wednesday.
Commentators in the French press suggest that no radical new measures will emerge from that meeting, given the apparently positive impact the 6pm nationwide curfew and the partial closure of national borders seem to be having.
"The danger now," according to a government spokesperson quoted in centrist daily newspaper Le Monde, "is that a burst of clusters, infected with the South African or Brazilian variants, could set the whole situation ablaze again. The level of circulation of the virus is already quite high. If that gets a sudden boost, the impact will be dramatic."
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