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VACCINES

EXPLAINED: How under 50s in France can book a Covid vaccine appointment

People aged under 50 in France are now eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine if there are last minute appointment slots available. Here's what we know about how the system works.

Published: 7 May 2021 11:04 CEST
Updated: 11 May 2021 14:08 CEST
EXPLAINED: How under 50s in France can book a Covid vaccine appointment
A healthcare student gets her vaccination dose. Photo: Fred TANNEAU / AFP

When?

This opened on Tuesday, May 11th, one day early.

What’s new?

France on Tuesday May 11th opened up its Covid-19 vaccination programme to allow all over 18s to book an appointment for an injection if there were any spare doses or appointment slots that had not been taken.

President Emmanuel Macron announced the move last Thursday but it came into place one day ahead of schedule.

What about normal appointments?

People who are already eligible can book in the normal way for an appointment days or even weeks in advance.

Those eligible currently are:

  • All over 50s
  • All healthcare and emergency workers
  • Anyone aged between 18 and 50 who has a health condition including severe asthma, diabetes or a BMI of 30 or above. Find the full list HERE.

Why the new move?

The idea is to avoid wasted doses and fill up vacant slots to increase the overall rate of vaccinations. While many people in eligible groups have reported struggling to find an appointment in their local area – and this website can help if you are having difficulty – there were also unfilled appointments in some areas, especially at the larger vaccine centres.

The government has so far resisted the call to open up vaccines to everyone, insisting that it is best to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups first, as this will have the greatest impact on death and hospitalisation rates.

But it has hit on this compromise measure to avoid any doses going to waste.

How?

From Tuesday if you can find any appointment going spare on Wednesday you can book it, even if you are not in an eligible group. 

Members of the public can now use the site Doctolib to reserve appointments. Simply tick the Public non-prioritaire box “For over 18s for appointments available between now and tomorrow evening.”

Doctolib says that all bookings can be made via its website or mobile phone app and there is no need to go on line at a certain time.

They also need to enter their town or postcode which will bring up any spare appointment slots near their home.

You then need to book an appointment for that day or the following day. There is no option to just turn up at your local vaccine centre.

Extra help

In what is likely to be a scramble for available slots, a helping hand is on the way. 

The website Vitemadose, set up by data scientist Guillaume Rozier also has a new function Chronodoses, which allows you to search for last minute appointments.

This 25-year-old data scientist is becoming something of a hero in France, first for his easy-to-understand breakdowns of the latest Covid data and then for the website Vite Ma Dose, which has helped numerous people to find an appointment near them. He’s also credited as being an influence on the government’s decision to open up vaccines to more groups, in order to avoid wasted doses.

READ ALSO: Who is the 24-year-old behind France’s most viewed Covid graphs?

Rozier announced the creation of a new site – ChronoDose – which will help people find last-minute appointments in an interview on RMC.

The new function became available from Tuesday on the Vite Ma Dose site – vitemadose.covidtracker.fr. 

It works in a similar way to Vite Ma Dose, which scans all the various different platforms offering appointments and then presents a list of the nearest based on the user’s postcode. The user is then sent to the relevant site to book the available appointment.

Over-18s select “Chronodoses uniquement” to see the upcoming free appointments for the next 24 hours and book one closest to them. 

Member comments

  1. If I get the first dose in this manner by using the last minute appointment, what is the process for the second dose? Will it follow the process as others or should i wait for a last minute appointment for it as well?

  3. You get the date for the second appointment when you book the first. If you are over 55 I get the impression you can choose by where you get vaccinated. It says which vaccines they give at a certain place. Under 55 not allowed Astrazeneca and J&J in France.

  4. We had our first vaccination in March of Astrazenika at our doctors surgery. Our second was due to be Saturday 8th May, which was cancelled and changed to 29th May. I am concerned that this will also be changed, in which case do we get a Pfizer for the second or what?

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HEALTH

France’s Covid-19 app to be ‘put to sleep’

France's Covid-tracker app, used for months for the all-important 'health pass' will be switched off today, health officials have confirmed.

Published: 30 June 2023 13:29 CEST
France’s Covid-19 app to be 'put to sleep'

Covid-19 screening in France reaches an important milestone on Friday, June 30th, 2023 – when the TousAntiCovid app is officially ‘put to sleep’.

The app, which was launched in June 2020 as France came out of its first lockdown of the pandemic and has undergone a number of iterations, including as a delivery device for the health pass, will be switched off. 

For most people, this anniversary will pass without mention. Few people have consulted the app in recent months, and it has sat dormant on many smartphones since France’s Covid-19 health pass requirement was suspended in March 2022.

Meanwhile, the Système d’Informations de DEPistage (SI-DEP) interface – which has been informing people about their test results since the Spring of 2020 – is also being shut down on June 30th, as per legal requirements.

The SI-DEP shutdown means that it will also be impossible to retrieve Covid test certificates issued before June 30th, should the need arise. All data held by the database will be “destroyed”, officials have said.

It has handled more than 320 million antigen and PCR tests since it was introduced.

This does not mean that testing for Covid-19 has stopped, or is now unnecessary. As reported recently, more than 1,000 deaths a week in Europe are still caused by the virus.

The shutdown of the national information system does not mean that people in France cannot still book an appointment for an antigen test at a pharmacy, or a PCR test at a laboratory. But the number of people going for testing is declining rapidly. In recent days, according to Le Parisien, just 15,000 people in France took a Covid test – the lowest number, it said, since the pandemic started.

Reimbursement rules for testing changed on March 1st, with only certain categories of people – minors, those aged 65 and over, or immunosuppressed patients – covered for the entire cost of testing.

From Friday, only PCR test results will be transmitted to authorities for data purposes, meaning pharmacists that only offer antigen testing will be locked out of the online interface to record test results.

The reason for the shift in priorities is to maintain “minimal epidemiological surveillance”, the Ministry of Health has reportedly told scientists.

As a result test certificates, showing a positive or negative result, will no longer be issued from July 1st. Since February 1st, anyone taking a test has had to give consent to share their data in order to obtain a certificate. 

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