PARIS – The last time was for France-Italy in the Six Nations tournament. February 9, 2020, a century ago. Since then, the stands and stands have remained empty. The Stade de France finally reopened yesterday for the final match against the virus. Appointment at Gate E. In place of the fans there are retirees like Murad Hussaoui, 73 years old. “I hope I can finally hug my grandchildren again,” he says as they ask him if he prefers his right or left arm for the injection. It is the turn of Bernard Miniat, a medical student. “I do an internship in a retirement home – says the young man – I do it to reassure the elderly I take care of”.
The only thing that has remained the same are the security checks and the long lines at the entrance. North of the capital, the Stade de France, where the Bleus raised the World Cup and where in 2015 there was the missed attack, is now the symbol of the long-awaited sprint in the vaccination campaign after months of delays and unforeseen events. France started the slowest of all in early January, and is still lagging behind in the race for immunity (9.3 million people with a first dose and 3.1 million with two doses). “Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate” promised Emmanuel Macron last week, announcing the third national lockdown in effect until early May. The French leader is at stake in this month of April. The “vaccinodromes”, such as the Stade de France, and the doses (12 million, of which almost 7 million from Pfizer) arrive. With an average of 260,000 injections per day, the pace has accelerated. But there are still sharp and incomprehensible slowdowns. On Easter Monday, it was discovered that the injections had dropped to 70,000 in one day.
“We work six days a week, from 8 to 20,” explains Arnaud Limont, a young firefighter at the entrance. “Priority? Pathologies?” asks the fireman registering each person with a reservation. “Will Didier Deschamps vaccinate me?” Fatima jokes about the national football manager. The 60-year-old lady says she has been trying to find a job for weeks. “It seemed impossible.” Prime Minister Jean Castex, accompanied by Ministers of Health and the Interior, came to cut the ribbon. “Now let’s change pace” promises the head of the government about the new hub of the Stade de France where up to 10 thousand people can be vaccinated a week. In the basement of the stadium, the silence is broken by the names called with the megaphone between firefighters and volunteers of the Red Cross. The debut is still slow. Yesterday in the middle of the day there were over 2 thousand free places scheduled until Sunday. A third of the doses are reserved for the inhabitants of the area but many do not know how to book. To complicate then there is the distrust. There is a clear preference for Pfizer, sold out, over Moderna’s serum, even if the two products developed with biotechnologies are substantially similar.
“We will soon solve these problems of influx” is convinced Mathieu Hanotin, socialist mayor of Saint-Denis, where the Stade de France was built for the 1998 World Cup. The city where the kings of France are buried is also the heart of one of the poorest suburbs in the country. And one of the most affected by Covid. “When there is a war, the ammunition must arrive on the battlefield,” says the mayor. Last spring there had been terrible images of hospitals no longer knowing where to put the dead. The third wave continues to be stronger and more lethal than elsewhere. “There are various reasons,” explains Hanotin of smaller council houses, larger families, people who continue to use public transport and cannot afford not to work. The vice president of the Senate, Laurence Rossignol, has asked that vaccination be open to the “second line” of workers, the humblest professionals who have proved essential in this crisis: cashiers, garbage collectors, cleaning women. “We must also offer them our gratitude” explains the socialist senator.
At the moment, the French government continues to want to proceed by age. At this time, the precious doses are theoretically reserved for people over 70 or for people with serious illnesses. But many GPs and pharmacists expanded the criteria out of necessity: there were no volunteers to have AstraZeneca serum inoculated. “Only today I had two cancellations, and it is like this more or less every day” says Corinne Ohayon, general practitioner in the Marais, furious at the “psychosis” spread over the vaccine of the Anglo-Swedish laboratory. Many doctors have begun to replace the reluctant with patients who are sometimes younger and in better shape. And patience for the time schedule and the government rules. “Should I stand still and wait?” Ohayon asks controversially. “You can’t, you have to go on with whoever is there”.
One of France’s few real successes so far is on the elderly: almost 90% in RSAs and 60% of over 80s have received at least one dose. Now we are starting to talk about inserting some new priority categories such as teachers and policemen. And from May the criteria will be further expanded, with the declared goal of achieving collective immunity for July 14, a national holiday. Also thanks to the Stade de France, one of the forty “vaccinodromes” that will open throughout France. The other good news is the departure of the national production of the vaccines in subcontracting. This week the filling of BioNTech starts in the Loire region, then the one of Moderna will arrive in the southwest. Another four plants are planned with the aim of reaching a production of 250 million doses by the end of the year, to be distributed throughout the EU. It is one of the many ways to make national pride forget another setback. Unlike Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, France has so far failed to develop its own vaccine. The first national pharmaceutical group, Sanofi, has blatantly failed. Now it promises a whey by the end of the year but in the meantime it has made agreements – also pushed by the government – to subcontract the products of competitors.
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