The Omicron variant is sweeping through North America, Australia and Europe. France just reported 270,000 daily cases. At the same time, European countries are doing some of the same things we’re doing here in America: loosening quarantine restrictions, loosening isolation protocols and making it easier for fully vaccinated people to move, travel and work. The key word is “vaccinated.” Most European countries have focused heavily on getting a huge percentage of their populations fully vaccinated and boostered through the summer, fall and winter. In France, more than 73% of their population is fully vaccinated. There are holdouts, and President Emmanuel Macron has an idea of what he’d like to do with the unvaccinated holdouts: piss them off.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he wants to “piss off” unvaccinated people as part of his strategy to fight COVID-19. Speaking to Le Parisien, a French newspaper, Macron said policies that ban unvaccinated people from cafes and theaters and otherwise limit their social activities are intended to be frustrating, adding: “I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. That’s the strategy.”
Macron said he won’t jail unvaccinated people or “forcibly” vaccinate them, so COVID passports are the best path forward. His announcement of a COVID passport scheme last July was met with angry protests, but also a major uptick in vaccinations as people didn’t want to lose access to bars and restaurants.
While France had among Europe’s highest rates of vaccine hesitancy early in the pandemic, 74% of the population is now fully vaccinated compared to 62% in the U.S. and 68% across the European Union.
France is currently seeing a massive spike in cases thanks to the Omicron variant, but unvaccinated people continue to be far more likely to end up in the hospital.
Macron is also in campaign mode ahead of April’s presidential election, and clearly sees the vaccine passport as a winning issue. Far-right challenger Marine Le Pen quickly accused him of seeking to divide people and “make the non-vaccinated second-class citizens.”
I think it’s fine? I agree with Macron, this is the strategy to employ. I mean, world leaders are trying different things to get their people vaccinated, and who’s to say that Macron’s strategy won’t work? President Biden’s strategy has also been to make people uncomfortable but in a more polite way, to encourage private companies to issue vaccine mandates, to leave it up to the service industry to mandate mask-wearing and vaccines. I actually think Macron’s more aggressive approach is smarter and more direct. People need to stop f–king around. Enough of this merde.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I agree with Macron on this
Hell yes!! I will *proudly* flash my QRcode or card to make sure I’m in a safer environment (yes, no place, even will all vaxxed is *completely* safe). For those who can’t vax, let their doctors submit proof an impartial state health board to get a “pass w/a mask” card, or something to the effect.
Enough IS enough. The majority can’t keep being held hostage to this sociopathic minority. They don’t want to vax? Sit their a$$es home or their covid filled noses pressed to the outside windows and watch from the sidelines. Time to make it *hurt*. You don’t *want* to be *part of society*? Your choice.
Ugh…sorry for ranting. But we are going into our 3rd year of this, and I’m tired of being “good” and still feeling “punished” while the unvaxxed rule the roost.
He probably should have worded it differently, for political expediency, but I agree with the sentiment.
I would go further and priorities hospital access/admissions for the vaccinated (or those with a valid medical extemption) over the unvaxxed – I feel it’s more unfair to have
our hospitals and emergency services full and overworked, less able to respond to strokes, accidents, or to deliver chemo treatments or preventative exams to fully vaxxed responsible members of society – than to cater to a irresponsible minority to the detriment of everyone else.
If people don’t care for society, society has a limited obligation to care for them, imho.
You’re missing the point. I am an American and I live in Paris. You have the leader of a free nation actively saying he wants to mess with his citizens.
Whether or not you agree with a pass, or a vaccine, that is not okay. If Trump had ever said something like this, people would have been furious.
When people ask how Nazi Germany happened and people sat by, here’s how.
The moment you invoked Nazis your post lost all credibility.
It IS ok. As an American living in Paris who is recovering from Covid, tough luck. I hope Macron goes even farther. The unvaccinated are re-infecting the vaccinated. Who gives you that right? And for the record, Trump said so many things far far FAR worse than that.
lolalola3 – both vaccinated and unvaccinated people trasmit covid. What the vaccine does is to stop severe forms of the disease that would end up in hospitalisation.
So even if you are vaccinated you should ( i hope) still practice all the safety barriers.
I’m with Ishkabibel. There are numerous things that are compulsory in democratic societies without that society tipping into dictatorship. It’s pretty simple – if the compulsory thing is for the health, protection or greater good of all the population – like seatbelts or schooling or vaccination – then the second coming of the Nazis is not nigh.
Also – Macron is not even making vaccination compulsory. People are still free to make that choice – they’re just not free from the consequences of that choice.
We had the leader of the free world (Trump) actively saying for YEARS that he was messing with his citizens. Remember his administration’s “conscience” rule, which allowed healthcare providers to deny healthcare to people they didn’t agree with or like, such as LGBTQ? Compare that to Macron, who is trying to SAVE lives. Trump petitioned to kill people with lies, meanness and punishment. He blamed Californians for wildfires, actively messed with NYC in the beginning of the pandemic…… I once wrote a paper on this topic so if you’d like a scholarly dissertation, by all means, let’s go.
Fast forward 20 years – you’ll be able to say, “when people ask how the U.S. became a fascist country, here’s how.”
And you don’t segregate the sick either. Imagine someone dying of cancer and being told “Well I would help you but this one’s not a smoker so back of the line”.
1. It’s a public health emergency. A public health emergency is a public emergency. A public emergency is a societal emergency.
2. This is not how Nazi Germany happened. You’re not educating us; you need to be educated.
3. If we continue to let unvaccinated adults drag society down, then fascism can happen because people will want someone to re-impose order.
4. Vaccination will control the pandemic and reduce the risk of fascism.
FFS, your comparison to Nazi Germany is ridiculous.
I am also an American in France and can attest that the pass works. I know a lot of people who were ambivalent about getting vaxxed (usually for selfish reasons like thinking since they’re young and healthy they wouldn’t get that sick) but did get vaxxed because of the pass. Again, they vaxxed for selfish reasons like they still wanted to go out to eat/drink, movies, travel etc….
Macron’s language is fine. The people who hate him won’t vote for him no matter what he says.
I’m here for it. Yes, it’s your choice to get vaccinated. It’s also your choice to wear clothes, use a toilet, drive on the correct side of the road, not punch random people in the supermarket, and other “choices” we make to participate in a civil society. Don’t want to get vaccinated? Those of us who are don’t really want to hang out with you.
Coercion instead of conviction is a failure of Government. It is the wrong tactic and apparently it was mistake that this press release was sent out before the law was passed in the parliament. Now even the MEPs who were initially pro the vaccination pass are against.
French people are famously contrarian, they will find a reason to criticize anything mandated by the government, i dont understand it myself, but i’ve come to accept it, my boyfriend is french as are many in my personal circle, its cultural and Macron has unnecessary kicked the hornet’s nest .
How much more “convincing” does a person need? What will it take? It’s been two years of this. I’m sick and tired of being told I need to gently pat idiots on the head and wait for them to pull their head out of their a** because they’re “contrarian.”
People. Are. Dying. Macron is right about this.
The wording is completely off. He is now facing severe opposition in the parliament. He is the president, not some guy ranting about covid and the unvaxxed in a café.
I find it fascinating how many people here are supporting Macaron! The guy is an idiot! Its like as long as it works well with your covid politics, its worth supporting? What happens next? We forcibly vaccinate Ultraorthodox jewish kids and gypsies? Lol. Think about the greater implications of what everyone here is supporting…
No one is forcibly doing anything, that’s precisely the point here. I’m neither here nor there on Macron, and I agree he could have said this a bit better, but can we PLEASE stop with the “covid politics”? There is nothing political about this. We’re in a pandemic and EVERYONE who is able to needs to pull together and protect each other as much as possible. Children who cannot get vaccinated for whatever reason need to be protected BY EVERYONE ELSE.
We all wear seatbelts, pay in supermarkets, and avoid punching each other because if you want to live in a society, there are rules. There are also consequences for breaking them.
Macron may not have been presidential, but he sounds like a man at the end of his rope and God, do I feel that.
this is for JC: please do not use the pejorative term for Romani people that you just did. That shit is rude and racist..
74% of his population is already vaccinated. So I’m not sure why you’re saying he’s kicked a hornet’s nest. The vast majority clearly feel vaccination is appropriate.
I’m also surprised at the terms like “coercion” you’re using, as well as another commenter on here, because this is not coercion. This is not force or violence. This is guidance for public health and to save lives. No one is being forced to do anything, let alone make a choice not to get vaccinated against a deadly virus that is engulfing the globe. Vaccination as a prerequisite for entering a business is not forcing anyone to be vaccinated. If people want to be selfish assholes, no one is stopping them!
i dont know how much you know about french politics, but he did kick the hornet’s nest , his comments have caused an uproar. See the comments from the other posters here who are french or living in france.
While 74% is vaccinated for now, there will be more boosters, so it is necessary to keep people engaged and “emmerder” the population is not the way to go. I am fully for vaccination, but this is a form of social coercion by making life as difficult as possible for those who are not vaccinated, whatever their reason. There has to be another way, what Macron has done is break the “contract” he had with his electorate, initially he had promised that no one would be forced and now he is reneging on that commitment, which will do nothing to repair the lack of trust that the french have in their government. In France, this is not a republican ( right) vs democrat (left) issue, but fundamentally a question of trust in government and pharmaceutical companies, and you dont repair that by loudly and arrogantly talking about pissing off people.
74% are vaccinated because it was more subtle than force or violence.
A lot of the vaccintaed people did this because they felt they didn’t have the choice!
First: locked down for 3 months. Then, they refuse the use or even the trying of some medical treatment. The only offer is VAX.
You did everything correctly and didn’t get covid in the first place? OK, let’s do this, you’ll need just one dose. Then , wait, you’ll need a second dose. Then, oh wait, now you need a booster dose or else you can’t go have a normal life, despite your 2 doses… Ok, look Israel is planning a 4th dose…you’ll probably need a fourth one.
We can’t make vaccination mendatory, so OK, let’s make a pass. Hum, there are still 5 million people un vaccinated, let’s make a vaccine pass…
Get a vaccine to protect the eledery, OK fine. Keep the school open because the kids don’t get COVID. OK let’s pack the kids in 30+ classrooms… Wait, now that almost all of the adults are vaccinated, let’s jab the kids because they can transmit covid…. How come my kids have been in their classrooms wearing masks from 7.20am to 5pm for more than a year????
Our motto is “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and Macron, as a President, is demantling all of these principles piece by piece. And he’s spitting at everybody’s face… He is really disappointing.
I have been social distancing for weeks/years, wearing a mask, cleaning my hands, avoiding crowded places, avoiding seeing my friends/family.
I thought I was fully jabbed but now I need a 3rd dose or my pass will expire in a few weeks…
So, no, it was not force or violence, this is just petty enforcement…
Thank you MrsBump! This is it exactly!
Right now where I live, the unvacced can still use grocery stores, banks and drug stores. They are talking about restricting all access to the unvacced. It’s phone or use the net to get your groceries and drug store needs delivered, and use a bank card at the machine instead of going in.
This is a problem of communication, and it’s not limited to France. Everyone thought that the vaccine would cure everything and we’d be back to normal when we took it. That’s how they got many people to get the vaccine, that’s the message that the CDC in the US promulgated, also to a certain extent the NHS here (although I do think Whitty, Vallance and Van-Tam were more nuanced than that) and in most other rich countries.
But that messaging didn’t allow for nuance, and it didn’t allow for variants. People didn’t want to hear that things would be better when they had the vaccine, they wanted to hear that this would be OVER when they had the vaccine. And it wasn’t. And that sucks. But the vaccine is still an absolute good. It is saving our lives, and our health care systems, and our economies. This is not over, yet. But I really do believe we’re in the beginning of the end. Its mutations are so much less serious than they were before.
Like the UK, you mean, where 80% of my office is isolating due to 2 antivaxx geniuses who spread it?
I’d have made it compulsory, even beyond Macron.
Freedom to infect shouldn’t exist.
Vaccinated people also catch and transmit covid to the same degree as unvaccinated people as we are seeing now with omicron. The vaccine only stops severe forms of the disease.
This is why there is more subtlety to this vaccine pass discussion than a knee jerk “vaxx good, unvaxxed bad” rhetoric. If an vaxx/unvaxx person has the same probability of passing on covid, then how does the vaccine pass protect anyone when in a restaurant for example?
Since the vaccine does protect against severe forms of covid, the only argument for the vaccine pass would be to stop unvaxxed people from going out, there by reducing their chances of contracting covid and reducing their chances of catching it and clogging the hospitals. But that seems a little like putting them on house arrest.
If we do want to protect people in public spaces, then rapid tests should be done by everyone and regularly , relying on the vaccine status alone is not enough.
Also instead of chasing the 26% unvaccinated, much greater focus needs to be put on getting the vaccine in poorer countries to prevent the next omicron, otherwise the efforts by the 74% would have been in vain
“Vaccinated people also catch and transmit covid to the same degree as unvaccinated people…”
Interestingly, that’s not necessarily true. I read this on the Mayo Clinic website yesterday, from an article dated 12/16/21, so written as Omicron was ramping up:
“People with vaccine breakthrough infections may spread COVID-19 to others. However, it appears that vaccinated people spread COVID-19 for a shorter period than do unvaccinated people.”
This makes sense if you think about it. If having antibodies via vaccination may make illness less severe, and less likely to require hospitalization, as they also note, it makes sense those antibodies would also cut down on the time a Covid positive but vaccinated person is communicable.
In any event, unvaccinated Covid patients are the ones currently filling up the hospitals, at least in the US, which not only places a huge burden, once again, on the healthcare system and it’s workers, but prevents treatment for non-Covid patients that also require hospitalization.
That article was written for delta as i had read it before omicron but regardless, since both parties vaxx/unvaxxed need to quarantine if they are infected , the fact that the vaxxed person is ill for less time is purely academic.
I am not against the vaccine pass, i have it myself, but it is inaccurate to say that the unvaccinated are the ones propagating the disease or that a space is safer if everyone is vaxxed. If we want to follow the science, we should be willing to listen to all of it, even if it makes the debate more complex.
Thank you Mrs. Bump for dropping straight facts.
It is true that we don’t know whether vaccinated people are less likely to spread omicron than unvaccinated people, yet. But we do know that the fact that the vaccinated person is ill for less time is not academic. That is less of a burden on the health care system. Fewer people in hospital, fewer people in ICU. A space is safer when everyone is vaccinated because vaccinated people are less likely to have serious disease. That is very important.
Being told that you cannot do certain non essential activities because you are a public health risk is not coercion. And vaccinated people can spread Covid but they don’t do it at the same rate. What unvaccinated people are doing is taking up the medical resources far more than the vaccinated by large percentages.
The viral load produced by an unvaccinated person is exponentially more than someone fully vaccinated and boosted and it lasts longer for the unvaccinated to be contagious as well. The unvaccinated are documented higher risks than the fully vaccinated by a large margin and it’s how variants have developed in the last two years. Those are the facts.
Unfortunately that is not true. The viral load for vaccinated vs unvaccinated are the same.
I had inserted a link but my comment was deleted. This info is readily available. The study was published in the Lancet.
I completely agree with regards to the unvaccinated clogging up hospitals, i have made this point several times myself and people should get vaccInated obviously, however we should remain aware of what the scientific evidence is.
Also with omicron it is no longer true that you are less likely by a large percent to contact covid if vaccinated. I think neither Pfizer nor Moderna make that claim. Reading the comments here make me feel that many are under a false sense of protection, all the necessary precautions are still very much needed, vaxxed or not.
Nic919 is absolutely right to say that unvaccinated people have higher risks than fully vaccinated people by a large margin. Viral load and contracting Covid are not the issue any more, the issue is whether you will be hospitalised/go into ICU. I have had omicron myself, I’m fully vaxxed (AstraZeneca) and boosted (Pfizer) and it was very mild. You absolutely still need to be wearing your masks and social distancing and taking precautions regardless, but any means by which we can get people vaccinated is a good thing.
I know of one cousin in France and her husband who are still unvaccinated. She needs a kick in the behind because every time she goes over to my vaccinated grandparents (not sure they are boostered), she exposes them and they are in very fragile health (in their 90s). She is also an osteopath so she has a medical background and she is in close contact with people during her sessions with her clients, it’s completely absurd to me she is allowed to do that but she has her own private practice.
As for Macron, I know a lot of people are probably thinking “good for Macron” to say this (the word he used in French was emmerder and if you know any French you know how strong of a word that is) and I agree with him. But to use the word “emmerder” against your own citizens even if they are incredibly stupid is not going to go over well with French people (even the vaccinated ones). I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t reelected (there hasn’t been a two term French president since Jacques Chirac left office in 2007). France’s National Assembly was debating late into Tuesday night about the vaccine pass and when they heard Macron’s comments, they suspended talks because they weren’t pleased with the interview. I just checked Le Monde’s website and they are currently still debating about it.
I’m sure he will be reelected.
Please, we need to get out of this creepy litlle kleptocrat
As a French woman, I think the way he said that was not appropriate. I would have chosen another words but I agree with the content.
I don’t want to be secluded in my house because of unvaccinated people.
The people who don’t respect the others is not the president, it is the unvaxxed because they don’t care about the poor doctors and nurses in the hospitals. That’s a really lack of respect… And criminal in my opinion.
I precise that Ididn’t vote for Macron in the presidential run.
Fellow french woman here and agree with you. I’m fully vaccinated (hell, the 3rd dose ruined my Christmas but glad I did it) but the wording is not “presidential” at all.
Anyway I voted for him in 2017 and I regret my choice now. Really scared about this year’s election
We’ve a PM to spare in UK 😆
Everything was in his program.
Do you really think the unvaccinated are the real problem? My sister is fully jabbed (3 doses) and just got positive…
1. The unvaccinated – whether by choice, lack of access, or being too young – are the real problem. They spread the virus and get more severely ill, jamming hospitals and making health-care workers sick.
2. Wishing your sister a full recovery. You know that the Omicron variant is better at “evading” the immunity offered by the vaccine, right? What her 3rd shot is likely to do is to protect her against getting sick enough to go to the hospital. That’s good. Without her 3rd dose, she has a much higher chance of severe illness or even dying. So, she was smart to get her 3rd dose, she was exposed to perhaps the most contagious virus ever (measles-level), she is likely to be okay.
Vaccines are not magic shields, but they are still quite clearly saving lives.
The only “sterilizing” vaccine that we have is the smallpox vaccine. The rest have very good track records in either disease prevention or mitigation. Why can’t we be happy about that? Most deaths used to be due to infectious disease; vaccines (followed much later by antibiotics; very recently followed by antivirals) changed that and thus changed the world.
Yep but did she need an ICU?
Because that’s the end goal of the vaccination.
I know plenty of people here boosted in the US who have been sick in the last few weeks with omicron like your sister (I hope she feels better soon) as do plenty of American commenters here (who they themselves may have already gotten omicron). Reports were that the current vaccines would probably be not be as effective against the omicron variant but it would help people avoid getting hospitalized and that they’d only experience mild symptoms. Most people I know who were vaccinated and boosted had very mild symptoms and I’m assuming that’s what your sister is experiencing (I hope). The vast majority of hospitalized patients in the US who got omicron are unvaccinated or haven’t gotten a booster shot. And right now we have a record number of children being hospitalized because the vaccine didn’t become available in the US for 5-11 year olds until beginning of November and so either kids aren’t vaccinated yet (or parents are choosing not to vaccinate them) or didn’t complete their vaccine series.
Yes, the unvaccinated are the problem if what is happening in France is similar to what’s happening here. The high positivity rates and the like I think are misleading to people, because people think “omg you can be vaccinated and still get COVID, does vaccination even help.” AND YES IT HELPS and makes a difference because at least here, out of the people hospitalized for COVID, something like 90 or 95% of them aren’t vaccinated. the omicron variant is more contagious across the board, vaccinated or unvaccinated, but overall the vaccinated still have more protection and we aren’t the reason why my local hospital has no beds at all currently.
I think that those 5 million people annoy the 62 other million who decide to follow a measure aimed at protecting themselves and people around us…
I think their fear is not justified.
They put their life & ours at risk just because they don’t want to be waxxed.
It is a pandemic so I think at this point we just lose our right to decide whether we have to be vaxxed or not.
I trust the doctors who put into market the vaccine.
I saw people getting sick and having consequences at their everyday life.
The fact to say no and to scare the others …not only is it immoral but it is also criminal towards the doctors and the people who are really sick (those who suffer from immune disease, cancers & so on).
ARN Messager was developed years ago & it is the only way to survive.
My father is slowly dying from a chronic illness. He has been hospitalized several times over the past few months. Last week, when he had to be hospitalized again, all the major hospitals in his area were on divert because they were full of UNVACCINATED Covid patients. He had to go to a small rural hospital far away from his home, with comparatively poor care that has made him sicker and likely hastened his death. So yes, the unvaccinated are a big problem, and in addition to prolonging the pandemic they are literally causing deaths from conditions other than Covid. I have no problem excluding them from public life until they get a clue.
@Lionel, I’m so sorry about your Dad. My cousin just got diagnosed with cancer and her surgery has been delayed indefinitely due to hospitals being overrun with mostly unvaxxed COVID patients. She’s terrified of the cancer spreading before she has a chance to get care. I’m in Quebec where the vaccination rate is high but the small percentage of unvaccinated people are making up two thirds of hospitalizations due to COVID. So yeah, @ Marion, anti-vaxxers are the real problem hospitals are their staff are on the brink of collapse right now.
He is right.
I mean, he’s right. I can understand the wording being an issue for some or whatever, but he’s still right. At this point, we need everyone vaccinated who can be vaccinated and if that means making things as annoying as possible for the unvaccinated, then that’s what we should do.
A someone who volunteers my time for equity work, and who holds equity close to my heart I will say this:
Willfully unvaccinated people SHOULD BE second class citizens.
I never believed second class citizens should exist in any form (hence my work). But these antivaxers have changed me. They deserve second class status. They deserve to be denied entry into civil society. They deserve for things to be harder and less attainable for them. If they hate it so much they can just get the vax and re-enter the realm of being a full citizen. Until they do that, they absolutely deserve second-class status. The willfully unvaccinated deserve any discrimination they are currently getting.
It’s a tough one, isn’t it, but the current reality is that the spread of the virus continues to enforce discrimination against the disabled and immunocompromised and elderly and medically frail instead. We already have a 2-tier system and it’s going the wrong way.
I love that he’s flat our saying yeah Im pissing off anitvaxers that’s the point. Get vaccinated. I love him cuttiy through the BS
Of course Marine would latch onto the dumb “second-class citizen” argument. Thank gosh Macron is not afraid to offend their delicate feelings. We are still stuck in this awful global pandemic. People need to get over themselves. I didn’t want the vaccine, but I got it at the first chance I got. I didn’t enjoy that it messed with my periods, but I got the booster too. The risk/benefit analysis clearly favors the vaccine.
People like Macron killed french social security and hospital FOR YEARS and now we are in big trouble thanks to THEM. I am fully vaccinated but i am tired of Macron’s nonsense.
I mean, my God, this is exactly the same in the UK. The Conservatives have killed the NHS by underfunding it for 10 years. I’m not sure if Macron wants to sell the French health care system to US private equity but otherwise when it comes to this, Macron and Boris are the same.
You know who else doesn’t like doing what someone tells them to do? Children.
I don’t agree with the wording but I do agree with the principle and it’s working. My older French relatives are very much right-wing conspiracy theorists but my uncle and grandmother were vaccinated in September when the passes became an issue for them. My aunt held out but finally had hers a couple of weeks ago.
We finally got to visit them in November after two years and I felt far safer in Paris than travelling through London on the way there, EVERYONE in the metro had masks on rather than maybe 1 in 4 in London. Every restaurant we ate in checked our passes, it was great (while my aunt had to pay 40€ for a test to come out for a family lunch that was booked while we were over).
A friend of mine is living in France for this year and has been traveling all over (her husband is french and they’re with his family for the year) and she says that she feels SO much safer in France because she knows if she goes into a restaurant, everyone is vaccinated. And they’re all still wearing masks apparently and all that.
We went to NYC a few months ago and same thing, at least for restaurants and bars – everyone there is vaccinated, so you just feel so much safer. now maybe some of that feeling is false, bc omicron is rising there like it is across the country, but I’d still rather be in a place that requires the vaccine for eating out etc than a place that doesnt.
It’s also not just the consumers vaccinated in the restaurant. It’s the wait staff, kitchen staff, any plumbers/repairmen that are needed, even the truck drivers that deliver produce to the restaurant are double vacced. It occurs to me that I have no idea if field workers who pick the produce are vacced at all. We get a LOT of produce from the States and Mexico.
We just got back from a week in Vienna- I loved having to show my vaccination cards and I loved that FFP2 masks were required everywhere. I felt a lot more safe abroad than I do at home!
Qr codes (vax proof) are required in many places in Ontario( gyms, indoor dining, clubs, bars, etc. We have a 81% vax rate in the Canada. Qr codes are also required in Manitoba, Quebec, and BC. The anti vaxxers have ruined our winter and they should face severe restrictions.
They are also required throughout Atlantic Canada.
Sask added QR codes requirements in the fall. We thankfully have easy access to rapid tests for now too.
The vaccines DO in fact work: what causes the omicron breakthrough infections is the mutations that keep it from being neutralized by the antibodies. So you get infected, BUT where the power of vaccines & prior natural infections shine is in the memory T-cell response, which is your SECONDARY line of protection. So basically, you get omicron because it escapes antibody neutralization, but your T-cells effectively fight it once it is IN your body. The other good news?? Omicron, the much milder COVID, is out competing and ELIMINATING the Delta variant. Omicron provides protection against Delta, but delta doesn’t confer protection against omicron. The vaccines WORK at preventing more dangerous symptoms and outcomes.
Risky given the forthcoming election and the regressive views of some potential opponents. But the right thing to do.
Don’t apologise. You are right.
@Kaiser, another 💯! Totally agree with you and Macron. As long as there are unvaccinated people there will be mutations that keep occurring an making ALL of our lives difficult.
In New Zealand we’re at 92%, helped on because our government basically said ‘the longer you hold out, the longer you’ll stay in lockdown’. For quite a big portion of the population it seems you need to mess with their day to day for them to do the right thing.
Hi Think, I assume you actually mean 92% of the eligible population, no? ..when comparing it to 73% (73.49% on Jan 3rd) of France’s whole population, NZ’s corresponding number actually stands at 75.32% of the whole population (on Jan 4th).
He is right.
Those who complain are incredibly privileged people with a lot of time on their hands.
I see people here complaining about the way “he worded” his statement. Seriously? The idiots he was addressing seem to understand exactly (and only) that type of language.
Enough with the pandering to people who will not cooperate no matter what that means for themselves or, even worse, other people.
THEY. DO. NOT. CARE.
Again…ENOUGH!!!
Not that anyone care but I’ve been waiting for my third shot (booster, as you call) for months now and finally will take it on January 17th.
And I consider that a f*cking privilege while living in a country (Brazil) where a negationist, dumb, genocidal, trump-groupie president denied vaccines for over a year. A country with a death toll closing in 620,000 people.
Needless to say, I have ZERO tolerance for the so called anti-vaxxers and for those who call that a freedom of choice.
I am fully vaccinated and also have no patience for anti-vax. However it pisses me out that our president is knowingly stating he wants to “emmerder” a part of our population.
1/ you’re the f-ing president, you don’t get to talk like that. I don’t support Macron but I expect more from him than pettiness (and “je veux emmerder quelqu’un” is as petty as it gets. Really poor choice of words if he meant “coerce”)
2/ it’s so stupid because it is detrimental to the cause. It’s not the way to convince those to get vaccinated, far from it. It accomplishes nothing.
3/ In fact, it’s a political mistake in a time where the law is still under vote and 24h after a huge slap in the face at the Assemblée for the majority. And now the vote has been put on hold… again.
So sure “emmerde” the anti vax as much as you want but don’t say it.
Macron rarely says anything that isn’t calculated. This is a “come at me” statement to his opponents. He’ll say “what would YOU have done?”, and then point to the high vax rates in France. This is the hill that he’s decided to die on.
More French people may have got vaccinated if Macron hadn’t spent half of last year dissing the Astra Zeneca vaccine for purely political reasons.
I’m here for Macron, and his language doesn’t bother me. F**k ’em is what I say about the willfully unvaxxed on the daily, and I’d love it if we could make their lives a lot harder here. Unfortunately, it’s a bit harder to enforce when you have 50 states, and the Republikklan trying to kill their red-hatted lemmings. I’m sick of the “but the vaccinated are getting it too” argument. The vaccine protects you from death and hospitalization, it’s not a promise of perfect health. In the past 3 weeks, I’ve had to take a PCR test 3x because I’ve got friends testing positive all over the place. I’ve been incredibly lucky to not get anything. I’m here in L.A. where they are pretty strict for the most part, and everyone that I know who has come down with holiday Omicron is triple vaxxed and has had pretty mild cold or flu symptoms. If the choice is between getting a shot that can save your life and long-term health struggles or death. I’ll roll up my sleeve now for a 4th shot. Macron is doing the right thing, and we’ll see if it works.
Son had covid. He was vaccinated. He has covid again. I had covid was vaccinated did not get it again, yet. Hubby vaccinated and had covid afterwards. Covid seems to come vaccinated or not. Rather we are high risk or low risk. All the arguing about denying care and punishing unvax people is really sick.
They aren’t dead are they? No one vaxxed in your family died.
Vaccines and boosters are doing what they are meant to do
So screw the antivaxxors, they should be penalized.
Went to the Netherlands to see my brother before Christmas and you can’t do anything there if you’re not vaccinated. Everywhere you would need to sit down and take your mask off requires a vaccine passport or a 24-hour lateral flow test. Most shops had an attendant at the entrance making sure everyone was masked properly. And with all these precautions they still had a surge in cases and are currently in lockdown until Jan 15th.
Psychotic.