104,611 new cases in 24 hours! This is the absolute record reached on Christmas Day 2021. The subject did not go unnoticed in the families where pro and anti-vax have strongly debated around the turkey.
The Covid-19 was invited to the Christmas meal in many French families. Between the turkey and the log, we have more or less gently scolded each other about the epidemic and the usefulness of vaccines.
In fact, more than 100,000 cases have been recorded by Santé Publique France (SPF) on this Saturday, December 25, 2021. This was announced by Olivier Véran, the Minister of Health, but this figure still gives a good idea of the meteoric progression of the epidemic in France.
On average over the last seven days, there are 72,299 cases per day. Still according to SPF, there have been 760 new hospitalizations in the last 24 hours, or an average of 1,217 new hospitalizations per day over the last 7 days. And, inevitably, this is causing stress on the health care system.
“It is not a childhood disease”
Why do doctors and scientists not agree among themselves on this epidemic? On the usefulness of the health pass and, soon, of the vaccine pass, on the interest of the vaccine, on the double or triple dose, on the vaccination of children? As in the media, as on social networks, the debate has been invited into family meetings.
Uncle Joseph, said he was opposed, totally opposed to the vaccination of children and adolescents. “Covid-19 is not a childhood disease,” he observed while enjoying a bowl of field, “so there is no reason to vaccinate them against a disease that does not concern them.” He also recalls that Vietnam has just suspended Pfizer’s injections for teenagers after four deaths and 120 hospitalizations.
His brother, Arthur, takes offense as he uncorks a bottle of Saint-Emilion. Without vaccines, the pandemic would have wreaked havoc on the population, like the great plague decimated the European populations in the Middle Ages,” he says. You have to be vaccinated for yourself and to protect others, of course.
“It is publicity…”
The aunt Eleanor who had not said anything until now not to aggravate things intervenes curtly: “That, it is publicity of the government taken again by the television to the orders of the powerful ones, affirms it while wiping the beak full of sauce. It is well known that vaccines, even with two and even with three doses, do not prevent from catching Covid nor from transmitting it. So what is the use of vaccines, I ask you? It’s all about money.
The young Pierre-Antoine, who is starting his medical studies, feels that all eyes around the table are fixed on him. A little embarrassed, he adjusts the tie he doesn’t have, grabs his black metal glasses and tries to place his voice before speaking. For he carries the voice of medicine and science around this table. But the exercise is delicate, so he tries to deflect: “Covid-19 is a very recent pathology that we don’t know very well yet,” he says. In the hospital, we have quite elderly patients, no children and no adolescents. So it’s a disease that tends to affect older people with comorbidities.”
“Let’s talk politics”
Aunt Eleanor laughs. She has probably abused the wine. She yells: “But that’s not the point! The question is whether or not vaccines are effective. And the answer is no. I’m not vaccinated. I don’t want to be vaccinated. This pandemic is about business, not public health. All these TV experts disgust me. They don’t know anything, we don’t know anything about the evolution of this disease, Pierre-Antoine just said it, nobody knows anything. So why do they scare us, why do they prevent us from going out, from going to the restaurant, to the cinema, eh, Popurquoi?
The spirits are heating up, Paul the eldest of the siblings who receives his brothers and sisters, calms the game: “Well, well, no need to get upset. Let’s not talk about the Covid anymore, it’s a sore subject. Today is Christmas. Let’s talk about something more consensual, please.”
After a pause he suggests, “How about politics? The presidential election is in three months.