Thread by @john_lichfield

Weekly French vaccination thread.
It has been a good week – the best yet.
France broke its record on each of the last 2 days – 545,000 shots on Thurs and 549,000 yesterday – or almost 1.1m shots in 2 days.
In 7 days, 2.8m doses were given, after 2.5m a week for 2 weeks. 1/11

All the same, the Fr. government wants – and needs – to go faster to hit its medically and politically important targets of 20m first jabs by 15 May and 30m by 15 June. France’s problem has changed: no longer a shortage of doses but a shortage of people willing to be dosed. 2/11

There were over 200,000 vacant slots at the start of the week, some with 10 jabs each. This is partly because of resistance to AstraZeneca but also because of general French vax-scepticism. The problem is NOT huge. By my calculation 86% of doses had been used by this weekend 3/11

Nonetheless, there are 3.5m doses in stock. The government is loosening its age rules to try to get more needles into arms in the next few weeks. All people over 18 with fragile health can seek a jab from today. ALL over-18’s can book an appointment from 15 June.
4/11

After hitting something of a plateau last week, the French vax programme accelerated in the last 7 days (despite the vax-shyness of a minority). See @Nicolas Berrod graph below. By last night 22,031,998 jabs had been given since 27 Dec, including 15,590,272 1st jabs. 5/11

In the last week, France delivered an average of 410,120 jabs a day, including 254,167 first jabs. Both are records (for France).
By comparison, UK, with almost exactly the same size of population, is delivering 533,807 jabs a day, including 118, 207 first jabs. 6/11

I undercounted the UK figure last week for which I apologise. My basic point remains. France is still miles/kilometres behind UK in total jabs. But its vax effort is no longer “stumbling” or “glacial”, as some insist. In terms of 1st jabs, Fr. is vaxxing at double UK rate. 7/11

And yet….As things stand, France will fall just short of its 20m 1st jab target on 15 May. An av. 294,000 first jabs a day is needed. The last week’s av. was 40,000 short. With J&J coming on stream in a big way and fragile 18 year olds eligible, France MAY just get there. 8/11

But the next target of 30m first shots by 15 June looks very ambitious. That’s 10m in a month. Only just over 7m first jabs were given in April (and that almost doubled the total given in the previous 3 months). 9/11

In terms of “vulnerable” age groups, France is doing well. Over 73% of plus 74’s have had 1 jab; 60% of over-64’;s and over 30% of plus 54's. See Vaccintracker chart. This must cut infections/acute cases soon – maybe it already is. Pressure on acute care is falling sharply 10/11

President Macron’s risky/courageous decision to open up France in 4 stages up to 30 June depends on a successful vax programme. France is getting there.
But the arrival of the Indian variant (only 5 cases in France so far) is a warning that nothing is guaranteed. 11/11