In France we are watching the parallel unravelling of the Europeanist Macron presidency. The leader who began this pandemic with the stirring words “we are at war” – repeated ever since – cannot explain why the French state had failed to vaccinate more that 352 people by the beginning of this week when Italy has done 129,000, Poland 51,000, or Denmark 47,000. The Balkans have done better.
“We are facing a state-scandal,” said Jean Rottner, president of the Grand Est region and himself a critical care doctor. “It is harder to get vaccinated than it is to buy a car.”
Indeed. The elderly must have a medical consultation five days before the jab. There must be a cooling off period after consent in case patients change their minds.
The precautionary principle has been pushed to absurdity, which raises suspicions in France that foot-dragging on the roll-out disguises something else: failure to secure the specialist freezers needed for the BioNTech vaccine.
So first Merkel bullies member states into supporting EU-wide procurement and approval of vaccines. VdL calls for “solidarity”. Then Macron insists that EU must order a large amount of the Sanofi vaccine (Sanofi, c’est la gloire de la France! La vassalité technologique – jamais!!) Then the EU’s EMA drags its bureaucratic heels on approval, while the Sanofi vaccine is found to be a dud…So the EU doesn’t have enough vaccines. And the delays could cost 85,000 EU lives, but, hey, “solidarity”.
The more forgiving reason is that Mr Macron has been cowed into caution by French anti-vaxxers: 58pc of the population in the latest Odoxa survey, up eight points form a month ago,
I wonder why the proletarian masses think the elite hates them and wishes them harm tho.
Mr Macron has no clear popular base
I’m as shocked as Claude Rains.
Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement is full of anti-vaxxers and cannot take full advantage of this debacle
Logically, but people aren’t logical. A majority of Scottish voters believe Nicola Sturgeon is an amazingly wonderful and compassionate person for doing exactly the same disastrous and evil things the irredeemably wicked Boris Johnson does. All comes down to emotion.
In the end, however, the virus may dispose of Mr Macron just as it disposed of Donald Trump
Covid uses Dominion voting machines?
A credible candidate is likely to emerge on the centre-right who splits the Macronian vote in the first round of the next presidential election, opening the door to a truly radical upset in the French political landscape.
The French are revolting and facing political upheaval.
I have yet to find a Frenchy who admires Macron. He is Pres simply because people didn’t want to vote for Le Pen. It is not a surprise. It was the attempt to push through Macron’s policies that scuppered Hollande. Sooner or later, the French are going to have to make the reforms to pensions etc that Macron wants but it will be divisive and messy, rather like the Thatcher legacy here. But it doesn’t look as if enough Frenchies want even to attempt it.
The precautionary principle has been pushed to absurdity,
The precautionary principle is, by definition absurd, it is risk management pushed to absurdity.
“Sooner or later, the French are going to have to make the reforms to pensions etc”
Outrageous. What will the world be coming to if a French Civil Servant can’t retire on a full pension at the age of 21 safe in the knowledge that if he has grandchildren they will inherit his pension?
…you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh…
Do they actually need super-freezers? From online:
The factory is in Belgium. Load up a panel van with as many boxes as weight allows, and start driving south. Drop off one box in every town with at least 5000 people. Nowhere in mainland France is more than a day’s drive from Belgium, so you still have nine days to actually do the injections. Twenty nurses working standard Gallic 7 hour days will have emptied the box within a week.
“we are at war” plus piss-poor performance – this is news?
Public Health England are utterly pisspoor but the EU scheme is in a completely different league, a league we would have been in had Remainers been in charge. The sycophantic Francophiles have been unusually quiet lately.
he leader who began this pandemic with the stirring words “we are at war”
He means it is Austerlitz but he doesn’t realise it is Sedan
@DocBud, “…risk management pushed to absurdity” – isn’t that just another way of saying “spineless decision avoidance and arse-covering”?
“we are at war”
Is this a moment to make a joke about the French military being under-supplied in white flags?
@Andrew M: the spirit of the age is to bemoan problems, not to solve them.
@Andrew M: I wonder – is that to do with the feminisation of society?
Obviously hoping the Uk and usa come and pull his nuts out of the fire. No thanks we saved your arses in ww1 and ww2 and you treated us like dirt. good luck in hoping the Germans helping you out.
@DocBud, “…risk management pushed to absurdity” – isn’t that just another way of saying “spineless decision avoidance and arse-covering”?
In potentially hazardous industries, Rev, decisions have to be made otherwise nothing would get done. In this age, where regulatory authorities are keen to prosecute management, arse-covering is important. This is achieved by applying risk management in a way any reasonable person would apply it. To do this, the level of risk is reduced to ALARA, as low as reasonably achievable. Clearly, this implies that some residual risk remains. If you were to apply the precautionary principle, the presence of that residual risk would mean that you would not carry out that, or any other, task.
The reality is that the precautionary principle has been created, not as a risk management tool, but as a means of stopping tasks certain groups, WWF, Greenpeace, ER, etc., do not like, e.g. fracking. In the public’s eye it appears to be a reasonable approach, whereas it is actually utter bollocks. If applied in everyday life, we’d never leave home (homes would not have stairs), we’d never eat solid food and we’d never use electricity.
I’d argue that the Precautionary Principle if a mirage, an ignis fatuus.
Doing nothing has risks.
Never forget that the NHS bureaucracy is but a wiggle on the scale of french bureaucrat obstructionism.
All the countries that have successfully started up their vaccination campaign have had a round of “You will shut the hell up, and you will ensure location[X] is prepared and staffed by [this deadline]. Or Else…” against the local clusters of usual suspects, chairwarmers and busybodies.
Just can’t see that possibly happening in France. Still have hope for the UK. …-ish.
The precautionary principle (PP) has Weak and Strong formulations, but neither are plausible. Weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while Strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required) are incoherent.
The Weak PP states that it is permissible to act in a precautionary manner where there is a possible risk of harm, but this is a trivial truism. The Weak PP is something we apply every day.
The Strong PP states that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required in all circumstances. However, this rules out all courses of action, including the precautionary measures it is intended to advocate, because precautionary measures also carry a risk of harm — eg prohibiting genetically modified crops risks famine.
The vax is not needed anyway. 6 or so effective treatments exist + 99.5+% chance of survival. Vs gene re-writing inadequately tested shite from legal action proof big Pharma. If the French don’t want anything to do with it, that–like the Yellowjackets–raises my admittedly low opinion of them.
@Mr Ecks – At 95.5% survival, or 0.5% death, if everyone in the UK catches it, that’s well over 300,000 deaths. If we get to herd immunity (at about 70% of people infected) it’s still over 200,000 deaths. Given the efforts taken to reduce road traffic deaths – which are under 2000 per year – I’d say we most certainly do need a vaccine.
And, of course, with all the hospitals full up with critically ill Covid patients, the survival rate will drop as we cannot treat everyone, and people with other serious conditions (such as cancer) cannot get treatment either so many of them will die also.
Yes, Ecksy, and the vaccines all contain a tiny 5G transmitter that will manipulate your brain…face/palm
@DocBud
The precautionary principle is, by definition absurd, it is risk management pushed to absurdity.
There was a risk management specialist (consultant in Brussels, I think) who kept a very interesting blog. May still do actually, haven’t checked up on it for yonks, but I fear like much of the blogosphere it may be long gone. Anyhow, he didn’t like a lot of EU regs (chemicals, GM etc) because he detested the PP. His opinion was that the PP not just “risk management pushed to absurdity” (as you call it), but the absence of risk management – not even attempting to engage with and manage risks. Rather like @Philip’s view fwiw.
You are a prize Tory mug without needing any 5g Theo–so what’s your excuse. Typing while hiding behind yr sofa on Blojobs orders are you tonight?
Charles–According to Blojerk 10,000s of thousands of cases a day. But NHS says less busy than last year. Only way that is poss is that the 10000s aren’t ill but shite PCR false positive test results used by Blojob to keep panic and LDs up. So as to force vax uptake among maskie cowards and then he can posture as vax saviour and hope the 50-200 000 people his LD shite has already killed will be forgotten. Indeed he is killing more via new LD in an attempt to hide the first set of LD deaths.
Spanish Flu killed 3 % of world pop and av age of death 28. This shite–even using their dodgy exag death stats has killed 0.002 of world pop –av age worldwide 79. Uk 82 with 2.7 co-morbidities=2 to 3 other ultimately fatal illnesses on the job.
C19 is a bad winter flu. Which kills thousands of old/ill/dying and also a few hundred young people who have no obvious reason to die. It is not the worst since Spanish Flu. Which I believe remains HK1968 The UK deaths of prev healthy folk are about 1500 which is still less than one days all cause UK daily deaths. So “everybody” isn’t going to catch it .
By all means you take the vax and hope for the best. CDC says 2.8 % anaphylactic shock sufficient to need med attn and render individuals unable to work or look after themselves. Time period/progression not yet known. That is after the first shot only. Still if you are lucky that nice Mr Bliar might be available to give you your shot in photo op.
‘… suspicions in France that foot-dragging on the roll-out disguises something else: failure to secure the specialist freezers needed for the BioNTech vaccine.‘
Or waiting for a French Pharma to launch a vaccine, as with everything else. Soutenir nos producteurs.
Deaths and alleged ‘cases’ have fallen significantly since mid-November – for both measures significantly lower than UK.
Also a majority of the French public are not positive about vaccination, most don’t want it.