Europe is pushing the stick to increase vaccination as the Delta variant spreads

According to the thousands of protesters who took to the streets of Paris, Montpellier and other French cities this week, their country has become “a dictatorship” and its president is reinstating “apartheid.”

The reason for his anger: Emmanuel Macron’s decision to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for all health workers before imposing them on the rest of the population. Now the French have to prove that they are vaccinated or that they have recently tested negative for the virus to enter cafes, restaurants, cinemas, high-speed trains or shopping malls. In the fall, coronavirus testing will no longer be free.

A little less than a year before the presidential election, the marches have revived the specter of the yellow vests who shook France in 2018 and 2019, when the popular protest sparked by motorists ’anger over a fuel tax turned into an anti-government movement of months.

The Macron measure comes as countries across Europe struggle to contain the rapidly expanding delta variant, which is first found in India and is now dominant in most EU countries. With less than half of their populations fully vaccinated, governments are trying to force their citizens to get the punch to limit a further rise in infections and avoid further restrictions.

Macron is following in the footsteps of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who in April was the first in Europe to impose vaccines on health workers after outbreaks in hospitals and nursing homes. Greece and Latvia have followed suit this week, threatening workers with job losses if they fail to meet the line.

Nearly 4,000 people protested in Athens on Wednesday, and in the UK, a petition against compulsory vaccination for health and social care staff has received more than 93,000 signatures.

Mandatory vaccination in Europe is not new: 40% of countries have it forced vaccination, including against hepatitis B, measles and meningitis for children, said Anna Odone, a professor of public health at the University of Pavia.

Mandatory vaccines “should be used in an emergency and we are living in times of emergency,” he said.

There is a direct link between hospitalizations, which are on the rise again in Europe and whether people have been vaccinated or not. In the 30 largest hospitals in France, each patient in intensive care had not been vaccinated, the government said this week. In Greece, the figure is 99%.

Despite a strong minority of protest, data from France and Italy suggest that the coercive approach of governments is yielding results.

Since Italy issued its decree in April, Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths among residents at home have declined, to the point that cases have disappeared. This reinforced a trend that began when the country imposed a specific vaccination campaign among residents in February.

In France, more than 3 million vaccine appointments have been booked since Macron’s speech on Monday, with daily bookings far exceeding previous records, according to dating site Doctolib. Approximately 60% of these were people under the age of 35 who had previously taken time to seek vaccination.

Vaccination of vaccines has been declining in Europe. In France, more than eight out of ten adults said they had or will get the vaccine, double the proportion in December, according to Odoxa, a surveyor.

Three out of four support compulsory vaccination for caregivers and 61% approve of the widespread use of “health passports,” according to a survey published in Le Figaro. Only 20% of Italians are against compulsory vaccination, another survey suggested.

The high reserves “show that there was, in those who were not vaccinated, a very small minority of anti-vaxxers,” said Clément Beaune, the French minister for European affairs.

The fear of an approaching fourth wave of infections makes most people willing to do whatever it takes to keep the virus at bay, said Mircea Sofonea, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Montpellier. .

“The fourth wave of hospitalizations can be delayed, it can be mitigated if we manage to vaccinate 60 or 70 percent of the population by the end of the summer,” he said.

However, many still have doubts about the ethics of these mandates. For Professor Adam Finn, who is part of the UK Government’s Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee, the most successful vaccination programs “should not provide sticks or carrots”, but rely on clear communication.

“It has taken decades to build that level of trust,” he said. “My instinct is that when it works well, be careful to get into it.”

This story has been modified to correct Professor Odone’s academic affiliation.

Additional reports by Daniel Dombey, Eleni Varvitsioti and Guy Chazan