Gisèle, 78, did not hesitate to stretch out her arm once again. This resident of La Montade, in Aurillac, went to the Mézard pharmacy on Thursday April 14 to receive her fourth dose of vaccine against Covid-19. “Me, I am disciplined, I follow the instructions”, says the bubbly septuagenarian, before Myriam, one of the five pharmacy preparers authorized to vaccinate, administers the injection to her.
For the third dose, Gisèle had received a letter from Health Insurance. This time, she didn’t wait to do it. “I heard about this new vaccination campaign on television. But since then, nothing. I have the impression that people have trouble finding their way around, ”she is surprised. What Myriam confirms: “Earlier, I had to refuse to vaccinate a client in her sixties, her recall dated back four months. »
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Recommended for people aged 60 and over
Since March 14, while the number of contaminations is still at a very high level, people aged 80 and over, the immunocompromised, as well as residents in accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people and in care units long-term are eligible for a second booster shot, starting three months after the injection of the first. This fourth dose has also been extended, since last week, to people aged 60 and over, with or without comorbidity, if their last injection dates back six months or more.
In the space dedicated to the vaccination of the pharmacy, present in this district of the Cantal prefecture since 1983, Josiane, 78, also received, Thursday April 14, an additional shot of vaccine to deal with the coronavirus and its variants. “Waiting for the fifth, the sixth…”, she jokes.
“At the same time, the main interest of this fourth dose is to keep the benefit of the first three. Here, we vaccinate without an appointment, on Thursday afternoon. On average, we welcome about fifteen people. »
Geraud Mezard (Head of the La Montade pharmacy)
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Opinions of health professionals
The vaccination centers having closed their doors last March, to receive it, the persons concerned must make an appointment with a city health professional (general practitioners, in pharmacies, liberal nurses, etc.) or in one of the department’s three hospitals: in Aurillac, Saint-Flour and Mauriac.
“In the first three weeks after the opening of the fourth dose, those aged 80 and over accounted for between 50% and 60%. Today it is much calmer. »
Virginia Roquier (Director of care at the Henri-Mondor hospital center in Aurillac)
When patients call Pierre Laurent, a general practitioner in Saint-Martin-Valmeroux, to inquire and ask him a few questions, he replies: “Of course it has to be done. »
“For immune reasons, it is essential otherwise your antibody level will drop to zero and that means you bothered with the first three for nothing! And then you start to look back on the vaccine and you see, from the numbers, that there are no major undesirable things. »
Peter Lawrence (General practitioner in Saint-Martin-Valmeroux)
In his office, nestled in the hollow of the Maronne valley, Pierre Laurent performs “a good thirty” injections each week since the opening of the second booster dose. “And it also vaccinates a lot in slightly more isolated corners like Riom-ès-Montagnes,” he says. It’s encouraging. »
Where is the vaccination coverage in Cantal? As of April 12, according to data available on the Geodes platform of Public Health France, among those over 80, only 1,025 Cantalians had a complete vaccination schedule (two doses and now two boosters), i.e. barely 7.5% of the age group concerned. They are 12,052 to have received an injection of anti-Covid vaccine and 11,886, two. At the level of the general population, 95,331 people received three doses of vaccine, ie a vaccination coverage rate of 66.8%?; at least two injections (118,220 people)?; only one (119.240).
Cantal among the departments with the highest incidence rate
We talk less about it, but the Covid-19 epidemic continues to circulate actively in Cantal, as shown by the health monitoring indicators (incidence rate, number of hospitalized patients, positivity rate, etc.) put in place by Santé public France.
1,737 cases per 100,000 inhabitants
Cantal is today the fourth French department where the incidence rate (which corresponds to the number of people infected in a population of 100,000 inhabitants) is the highest, on April 10…
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Over the past seven days, the number of contaminations has continued to increase, with, as of April 13, an incidence rate of 1,737 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (it was 1,421 per 100,000 inhabitants for the week of March 14 to 21). and 1,651 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the week of March 21 to 27). People over 90 (2,464 cases per 100,000 inhabitants), 40-49 year olds (2,145 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) and 30-39 year olds (2,066 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) are the most affected.
The test positivity rate stands at more than 41% (out of 903 screening tests carried out on average from April 4 to 10).
Sixty people hospitalized
At the level of hospital services, sixty people are currently cared for in the department’s care establishments. Among them, two were in intensive care for having contracted a serious form of Sars-CoV-2 linked to the Omicron family, and in particular the BA.2 variant, currently the most active in the territory (it represents 100% of cases in the Cantal).
Since March 2020 and the start of the epidemic, 205 people have died from Covid in a hospital in the department.
Emmanuel Tremet