95% of people need to be vaccinated to stop Delta variant: French health panel

Nearly 95% of people might need to be vaccinated to arrest the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, a French panel of health scientists said on Friday.

“A fourth wave linked to the Delta variant of COVID could hit swiftly, with repercussions for the health system despite high levels of vaccination”, the scientists of the Scientific Council were quoted as saying by AFP.

“We can’t get the epidemic under control unless 90 to 95% of people are vaccinated or infected,” the council added.

Only around 50% of French adults have received at least the first dose of COVID vaccine so far whereas about 40% are fully vaccinated. The government is aiming to get two-thirds or 35 million people fully protected by the end of August 2021.

“If people wait until after the summer holidays to get vaccinated, it will be too late,” epidemiologist and Scientific Council member Arnaud Fontanet told broadcaster RTL, recalling that the shots are “very effective and free of charge”.

With case numbers rising after a series of reopening steps, President Emmanuel Macron is expected to outline the next moves in managing the pandemic in a Monday evening TV address.

On the agenda at a meeting of France’s defence council earlier Monday is whether to make vaccination compulsory for health workers, one of the key recommendations from the scientists.

Ministers could agree on a draft law as early as Tuesday before sending it to parliament.

The Scientific Council also urged strengthening the country’s track and trace program and highlighted rising numbers of hospitalisations due to the Delta variant — first detected in India — in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Portugal.

The variant already accounts for half of the new infections in France and is believed to be around 60% more infectious.

“Without infection control measures, there could be a similar peak in hospitalisations to the one in autumn 2020,” the Pasteur Institute research organisation warned, adding that unvaccinated over-60s remained especially at risk.

Other scientific advice included reducing the number of people allowed to attend events, localised restrictions, and reducing the time between the first and second doses of mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna from six to three or four weeks.