During the night of Thursday to Friday, the National Assembly adopted a bill which aims to purely and simply repeal the obligation to vaccinate caregivers against Covid-19. Several healthcare organizations deplore this choice.
It is a vote that has not finished splitting. The deputies adopted this Thursday, May 4, at first reading, a bill to repeal, and not only suspend, the anti-Covid vaccination obligation for caregivers, a failure for the government, for the majority… but also for many many healthcare organizations who denounce this bill.
Read also :
Caregivers: the National Assembly votes to repeal the anti-Covid vaccination obligation
The vice-president of the National Council of the Order of Physicians, Jean-Marcel Mourgues, said his “misunderstanding”, while “the Covid continues to make sick and kill many people: the Covid kills more than the flu, with 206 dead” in France in the last week of April, underlines the latter. “We must not let our guard down, even if we are no longer in the same gravity as three years ago”. Same reaction from Daniel Guillerm, president of the national federation of nurses: “Questioning the compulsory vaccination of caregivers is a disaster in terms of public health and of the message addressed to the population. It is an irresponsible decision which makes the reads antivax and mortgages all chances of having a mass vaccination of the population in the event of a return of a mass epidemic.
“Conspiracy prevailed over science”
For its part, the government has also expressed its dismay: “Conspiracy has prevailed over science”, lamented after the first vote the Minister of Health François Braun, opposing a text which goes according to him “weaken our capacity to respond” to the Covid and which sends a “regrettable message”. The government has already announced the future reintegration of non-vaccinated caregivers, after an opinion from the High Authority for Health (HAS). It could start as early as May 15. But the government proposal is insufficient for many opposition MPs, especially from overseas.
Read also :
Covid-19: unvaccinated caregivers will be reinstated “mid-May”, announces the Minister of Health
The deputies on the left have endeavored to reject the accusations of “conspiracy”. “I repeat the respect we have for scientists, for vaccination,” insisted PCF national secretary Fabien Roussel. Several elected officials insisted on obtaining a repeal, so that a possible new vaccination obligation necessarily goes through Parliament, and not by decree. The deputies of the presidential majority all voted against. Insufficient in the face of the combined voices of the opposition, which passed the text with 157 votes against 137.