A quarter of people in France against Covid vaccine

The poll was run by Ipsos for the World Economic Forum, across 27 countries. It showed that people in France were some of the most resistant in Europe to being vaccinated against Covid-19, behind those in Russia, Poland and Hungary.

This comes even as France’s Institut Pasteur is developing a Covid vaccine.

Read more: Paris is doing human trials but France lags in vaccine race

Over half in France do plan to get vaccinated

According to the poll, 59% of people in France do plan on getting vaccinated once a vaccine is available.

Worldwide, 74% of those questioned said they planned to get vaccinated, with the strongest agreement coming from the Chinese (97%), Brazilians, and Australians (88%). In the USA, 67% of those questioned said they would get vaccinated.

Those who said they would not get vaccinated cited fears over secondary effects (60%), doubts over how effective the vaccine would be (33%), a belief that Covid-19 is not dangerous enough to warrant a vaccine (14%).

In France, 24% of those who plan to refuse the vaccine would do so on the grounds that they are against vaccination in general.

Read more: President Macron hopeful for 2020 virus vaccine in France

France still seeing over 7,000 cases per day

This comes as new Covid-19 cases in France remain at around 7,000 per day.

Figures from health body Santé Publique France (SPF) released on September 3 show that in the previous 24 hours 7,157 cases were recorded.

The rate of positivity, indicating the percentage of overall tests that come back positive, rose slightly to 4.4%.

Cases of patients in intensive care are also rising steadily, although not as dramatically as earlier this year. This week, there were 15 new admissions on Tuesday, 22 on Wednesday and 18 recorded yesterday (September 3), bringing the total number of intensive care patients in France to 464.

At the height of the health crisis, there were 7,148 patients with Covid-19 in intensive care in France.

Currently, 23 departments in France are considered to be “highly vulnerable” to the virus, and 37 “moderately vulnerable”

Hundreds of classes and 22 schools close over Covid fears

As students returned to school in France this week, Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer announced this morning that 22 schools and hundreds of classes have already closed over health fears.

Speaking to news source Europe 1, about the school closures Mr Blanquer said: “Relating to the 60,000 schools, collèges and lycées we have in France, it’s a relatively small number.”

Twelve of the closed schools are in mainland French cities and ten are in the overseas territory of La Réunion.

On the hundreds of closed classes, he said the number “varies every day”. The minister said that around 250 classes were being investigated on a daily basis after schools had notified authorities of potential Covid-19 cases.

He added: “What’s interesting to note is that the suspicions [that Covid is present] are linked to factors outside the school.”

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