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TOURISM

Reader question: Which Covid vaccines will France accept for tourists this summer?

As France plans to welcome back tourists this summer, some worry their Covid vaccination type won't be accepted at the border.

Published: 11 May 2021 16:08 CEST
Reader question: Which Covid vaccines will France accept for tourists this summer?
Tourists may soon visit Paris again. Photo: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

Question: I was thrilled to hear that France is welcoming back vaccinated Americans this summer, but will I be able to enter with the Moderna vaccine? 

France plans to lift travel limits on non-EU countries on June 9th, provided the health situation remains stable enough for the country to continue with its gradual reopening.

Meanwhile people can travel for any reason – including tourism, family visits and visits from second-home owners – from within the EU and Schengen zone and seven non-EU countries, including the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

French President Emmanuel Macron set the date as he announced the plan to phase out Covid restrictions in the country, specifically saying he wanted to welcome Americans back to France this summer.

This is in line with the EU’s policy, although EU leaders have yet to set an exact date.

International travel over the summer will however require valid health pass, a digital document that contains a vaccination certificate or a recent negative Covid test result.

How exactly this will work remains somewhat unclear. France is working on its own version of a health pass – pass sanitaire – as well as with the EU, and the goal that each country’s pass will be scannable and valid by authorities abroad.

READ ALSO How do I get a ‘health passport’ for travel to and from France?

But which vaccines will be accepted on the border?

“All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all (Americans) who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by the European Medicines Agency,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said back in April.

The EMA has so far cleared four vaccines, all of which are in use in France: Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson (which is known as Janssen in France) and AstraZeneca.

It is currently reviewing the Chinese vaccine Sinovac, which may be approved for use if it stands up to the regulator’s requirements, but at present has not begun the formal process for the Russian Sputnik vaccine.

France is working on a new traffic light system that will determine the travel limits in place for tourists coming in from different countries. Due to a mounting fear of new Covid variants, France already placed several countries on a ‘red’ list obliging travellers to comply with strict rules including a compulsory police-enforced quarantine period. 

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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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