Editorial of the “World”. The closer the presidential deadline approaches, the more the management of the Covid-19 epidemic takes on acrobatic looks. For two years, Emmanuel Macron can boast of having made good decisions. Opening schools when so many other countries kept them closed remains to his credit. As well as the decision taken, in July 2021, to introduce a health pass to encourage as many French people as possible to be vaccinated. This anticipation, at the time disputed, allowed our country to be less vulnerable than many of its neighbors in the face of new epidemic waves.
The last few weeks, marked by the circulation of the Delta and Omicron variants, the first much more dangerous than the second but the second much more contagious than the first, have however shaken these two gains, at a time when public opinion is hardly inclined to indulgence. Tired by the length of the epidemic crisis which deeply disrupts their way of life, the French have difficulty coping with the new constraints, a fortiori when these seem to them to be ill-suited.
The example of the health protocol in schools sounded like a warning: the government had to quickly beat a retreat, faced with the double misunderstanding of teachers and parents of students, forced to multiply the tests without being sure of being able to do so. in good conditions, nor to avoid repeated class closures.
In this context, the implementation, Monday, January 24, of the vaccination pass takes on the appearance of a challenge. The validation by the Constitutional Council of the essence of the bill does not make us forget the bitterness of the parliamentary debates which gave birth to it: a part of the left, the right and the whole of the extreme right have denounced a draconian measure by accusing the government of wanting to fracture society in order to transform the minority of the unvaccinated into scapegoats for the crisis. The words of the Head of State claiming, in The Parisian to want to “piss off” the non-vaccinated have accredited the thesis of a very political offensive, at the risk of transforming the management of the health crisis into an object of the electoral campaign.
The weapon of pedagogy
We urgently need to come to our senses: the vaccine remains, as it stands, the best protection once morest the virus. Admittedly, it does not prevent contamination, but it substantially reduces the risk of developing the most serious forms. The doctors say it and the statistics prove it. Designed as an incentive, the vaccination pass cannot be considered as an unbearable amputation of individual freedom as long as its usefulness is demonstrated to protect lives and avoid saturation of hospital services.
In the battle once morest the epidemic, education remains the best weapon of public authorities. It is all the more necessary as the very changing context is conducive to suspicion: the decline in the Delta variant has clearly reduced the fear of death; the beginning of mastery of the Omicron variant maintains the hope of better days. The government can quickly be criticized for being out of time by tightening health control at a time when other countries are beginning, on the contrary, to loosen the constraint.
To mitigate this risk, the Prime Minister opened up prospects on Thursday, January 20, by providing for a partial easing of the constraints in two stages: February 2 and then February 16. It is not therefore guaranteed to have then completely finished with the epidemic. Less than a hundred days before the first round of the presidential election, the virus still remains the master of the clocks.
