While the third dose has just been , an expansion is not excluded in the future, says Health Director Jean-Claude Schmit in an interview with Delano’s sister publication Paperjam. But an extension to the whole population remains, for the moment, at the discussion phase.
As far as the epidemic situation is concerned, although the number of infections is rising throughout Europe, Luxembourg is rather well protected, he believes, as vaccination is at a good level and protective measures have been maintained. But the director of health does not rule out a strengthening of anti-covid measures if the situation worsens.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued an opinion at the beginning of October authorising the third dose for people over 18. By opening it up to the over-65s, you are moving forward in stages. Why not extend it even further?
Jean-Claude Schmit - It's important to give clear messages, to target groups according to age or other criteria, and to say to people: you belong to this group, now we are trying to motivate your group.
Should we target everyone or only people over a certain age? We shall see.
And there are practical considerations. The limiting factors are not the vaccination centres, which have a lot of capacity. But many people now prefer their GPs. They have a limited capacity to receive patients: it takes time to make an appointment, the doctor has to organise the vaccination sessions, they have to have 5 or 6 patients at the same time because the doses are multi-doses and as soon as you open a bottle, you have to use it. This may explain why only 40% of elderly people have received their third dose.
Should the third dose be extended to everyone in the long term?
It's not out of the question to extend the scope of this vaccination, it's a point of discussion. But there is not much data. But should we target everyone or only people over a certain age? We shall see.
In addition, in the first wave, we vaccinated gradually. There is certainly no urgency to revaccinate young people who have just been vaccinated: their immune system is working well and will continue to do so for another nine or twelve months, perhaps even longer. So we have time.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently announced that, given the current dynamics, the epidemic could cause up to 500,000 more deaths in Europe this winter. Is Luxembourg affected by this statement or are we protected?
We are well protected: our vaccination rate is not bad, we are slightly above the European average--even if we can do better, that is very clear. The most problematic countries at the moment are those with the lowest vaccination rates.
The most problematic countries at the moment are those with the lowest vaccination rates.
In Romania or in the Baltic countries, the vaccination rates are low, the situation is catastrophic. On the contrary, if you take countries with very high vaccination rates, like Portugal, the situation is quite calm. Europe is very heterogeneous, so one country will not be affected in the same way as another.
In Denmark, vaccination is at a very high level, but the epidemic has started again.
Denmark is one of those countries that took away all the protective measures and barriers. Then they ended up with a very rapid growth in new infections. Luxembourg is not in the same situation: it is also increasing, but much more slowly, because we still have measures in place.
Is a return to more restrictive anti-covid measures possible?
Can we control this wave with the current restrictions? Do we need to introduce new ones? Depending on how things develop, we will have to discuss this. It's something we have to see on a day-to-day basis and, potentially, we will have to adapt if the epidemic situation gets out of hand.
We are in a completely different scenario and this is the concrete effect of vaccination.
Is vaccination showing its effectiveness in the field?
Vaccination is showing its effects. I remind you that last year at the same time we had incidences of 800 cases per day with 200 or 250 hospitalisations. Now we are talking about 30 to 40 hospitalisations and 200 cases per day on average, with less restrictive measures than a year ago. So we are in a completely different scenario and this is the concrete effect of the vaccination.
Are hospitalized people still mainly unvaccinated?
We have a very large predominance of unvaccinated people in intensive care and among deaths. This is a very clear phenomenon. Unfortunately, from time to time a vaccinated person comes into intensive care. But these are very old people or people with pre-existing diseases, such as cancer, for whom vaccination works less well.
We have a very high preponderance of unvaccinated people in intensive care and among deaths.
Children now account for a large proportion of infections, with 11.1% of active infections in 5-9 year olds. Should we be concerned?
Children are not vaccinated so the virus is circulating among them--a little less than last year though. This is not a peculiarity of Luxembourg, we see it in all countries.
But we are not worried, the children are coping well with this infection and are not really getting sick. On the other hand, there is the fear that they could bring the virus back home where a vulnerable parent or grandparent could, despite vaccination, become infected and have complications. So that's something we're monitoring very carefully.
This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.