Quand la démocratie en prend un coup

More than one year has passed since I wrote my last post on the 11th of March 2020. At that time, I wanted to alert about the first coming epidemic wave and recommended to adhere to a “stay at home” principle. It was a couple of days before our president, Emmanuel Macron, made his declaration of war (against a virus!) on TV, during which he ordered the first nation-wide lock-down, starting the 17th of March 2020.

Since then, we went through the second wave and the third wave, and we endured a second and third lock-down. According to epidemiologists, the fourth wave might be on its way.

But concomitantly to the third peak, the vaccine was made available.

To be or not to be vaccinated proved to be a divisive debate. In fact, there was no debate. Pro- accused anti- to be complotiste, while anti- accused pro- of collusion with the “system”. It seemed that our country had lost his intelligence, his ability to weight pro and cons, to reason with the data at our disposal, and to find the best compromise given all the constraints of the problem.

I already had the opportunity to express my views on the covid vaccination.

In summary :

- yes, the vaccine is efficient

- yes, there is an immediate benefit after, let’s say, 50 years of age (or even younger in case of comorbidity): in this class of age, the benefit-risk ratio of the vaccine is beyond any doubt

- there is no individual immediate benefit-risk ratio in younger people, especially in children and adolescents. For this class of age, there is no immediate benefit (except a putative benefit to be protected against the risk of long-lasting anosmia, but this risk is not very well known), because the disease itself is benign. And regarding potential long-term complications, we simply don’t know, as one should compare two unknown risks: the risk to develop a late complication of the vaccine, versus the risk to develop a late complication of a benign covid infection. See you in 10-15 years to get an answer to this question.

- yes, any lock-down comes with a social, economic and psychological price to pay. And this price is high enough to justify a large vaccination campaign, so that the heard immunity would be reached.

Tonight, our president, has announced more or less that the vaccination will be mandatory, starting from 12 years of age: without a digital covid certificate (which requires either a vaccine certificate or a recent negative PCR), you will not be allowed to go the café, restaurant, theaters, cinemas, trains … Moreover, all caregivers now have an obligation to be vaccinated.

I must say this decision made me completely depressed. And the fact that the digital covid certificate is a European initiative made me even more depressed.

First, there is something in the idea of restricting the social life of a citizen based on some of its health characteristics that strongly hearts my convictions. Something that sounds like a standardization of our health. And I hate standardization. Because standardization has a flavor of abdication.

Second, since the declaration of war of March 2020, all the rules are established outside of any democratic process. The president makes an allocution on the TV, and here are the new rules. Within one year, we have lost what we would have thought impossible to loose: the French passion for political debate. Instead of this disguised vaccine obligation, any democratic government would have taken the opportunity to demonstrate that the democracy is alive. All these questions would have been an extraordinary topic for a referendum :

- first question : are you favorable or against the digital covid certificate ?

- second question : We have two solutions. Either to continue with lock-downs to face coming waves. Either to make vaccination mandatory, starting from the top of the age pyramid and going down until heard immunity will be reached (maybe until 25 years of age ?). Which solution do you prefer ?

Democracy is the greatest looser of the covid pandemic.

And now the real question : why do we accept this evolution without any resistance ? what did happen to the nation in whom was written in 1789 the first declaration of human and civic rights ?

A topic for a future post …

Et comme le rappelait le fidèle berger Vialatte, « Et c'est ainsi qu'Allah est grand »