A first case of the British strain of the coronavirus was detected in France just hours after the start of the vaccination campaign in the country, where the first doses of Pfeizer arrived this Saturday.
A patient from Tours, a Frenchman living in the UK, tested positive and tests showed it contained the new strain, which British authorities consider more contagious though not more serious for health.
The man had arrived in France via the train crossing the English Channel last Saturday, the same day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new confinement of the population.
Two days later he was admitted to the hospital in Tours, in the center of the country, where he was tested and tested positive.
As a result of their provenance, the samples were sent to the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) where the strain was sequenced and it was determined that it was the new British variant.
The patient is currently isolated in his home and is asymptomatic.
The French health authorities have begun tracing all the contacts he had in search of new cases, as indicated in the protocol.
They added that there are other positive cases that are being analyzed to determine if it is also the British strain.
Like other European countries, France closed its borders with the United Kingdom at midnight last Sunday for 48 hours, after London reported the appearance of this variant of the Covid-19.
Border lock
The blockade of the border, the largest in the United Kingdom with the mainland, caused major queues of trucks and passengers, which are still on both sides of the English Channel, although Paris announced the reopening of the same last Wednesday.
Especially on the British side, because France demands a negative coronavirus test from everyone who wants to enter the country from the UK, which has caused a traffic jam that is causing a lot of delays.
The one in France is not the first positive for the British strain detected in continental Europe, where there have already been cases in Italy, Germany, Gibraltar and, more recently, in Madrid.
Its revelation comes on the eve of the start of the vaccination campaign in Europe.
France, which has more than 2.5 million infections and 62,000 deaths, received the first 19,500 doses of the Pfeizer vaccine on Saturday from the pharmacy’s warehouse in Belgium.
Escorted by the Gendarmerie, a refrigerated truck transported the doses to a hospital logistics center located on the outskirts of Paris.
French health authorities have scheduled the campaign to begin symbolically this Sunday at two senior centers.
The first patients will be elderly residents in a center in Sevran, in the Paris region, and in another in Champmaillot, in Burgundy, in the center of the country.
Vaccination campaign
From the next few days, the vaccine will be distributed regularly according to the doses they have among the 7,000 centers for the elderly in the country.
Its residents are the first to receive the remedy, along with their at-risk staff, based on the strategy established by the French Government, which hopes that this first phase of vaccination, which affects 1 million patients, will last until next February.
The vaccine will then be opened to other population groups in a campaign that will not end until well into spring.
France has launched a digital platform to record the possible side effects felt by vaccinated patients.
The vaccine against Covid-19 will be free in France, but will not be mandatory in a country where recent studies indicate that more than half of citizens are reluctant to get it.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has just spent a week in solitary confinement after testing positive on the 17th, encouraged all citizens a few days ago to stand up when it is their turn and he himself said willing to do so.
Macron is spending a few days off at the presidential holiday residence in Fort de Brégançon, in the south of the country, with his wife, after overcoming the illness, Elisi said.