Covid-19: the withdrawal campaign with the new vaccines will start on October 3

On September 20, the High Health Authority (HAS) gave the green light to the use of three new vaccines called “bivalent”, which attack both the original strain of Covid-19 and the Omicron variant, the origin of the majority of new infections in France.

This Tuesday on Franceinfo, the Minister of Solidarity and Health, François Braun, indicated that the injection of these new vaccines would begin “from October 3”, in a context of resumption of the epidemic. 7,489 new positive cases of Covid-19 were detected as of September 26, an increase of 43.5% in seven days.

“There is recirculation of the virus, therefore there is remobilization”, declared François Braun.

Vaccines targeting Omicron

Among these new validated vaccines, there are two sera, developed by Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna, that target both the original strain of Covid-19 and the Omicron BA.1 variant. The third serum was developed by Pfizer BioNTech and targets Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 variants. The objective is to adapt the vaccines to the variants that circulate more actively, and therefore make the response given by the authorities more adequate.

But these updated vaccines are not intended for the general population. Yes, “we are going towards a new booster dose”, declared François Braun. But “not for the entire population.”

“HAS has been clear and continues to tell us to vaccinate a target population: frail people, people over 60 years of age, people who have not been vaccinated from this second booster this summer must be vaccinated, those who have been vaccinated will be revaccinated”, has pointed out. continued.

Before HAS schedule

However, the date of October 3 announced by François Braun on Tuesday is going faster than the calendar recommended by the HAS. In its opinion of September 20, the Authority had underlined “the interest of joining this new campaign to the seasonal flu vaccination campaign that will begin on October 18”.

As for the return of the mask in transport or possible measures to curb the epidemic, these decisions are not on the agenda, said François Braun, who is committed to the good citizenship of the French. “Let’s resume the good gestures that our fellow citizens have adopted since the beginning of the crisis,” the minister limited himself to commenting.