A couple months ago, our French friends were protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s health pass—the pass sanitaire—requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination, recovery, or negative test to access all sorts of venues and transportation services. Those protests seem to have been exaggerated—the French government is extending the pass sanitaire through the end of July 2022, since it seems to be working pretty well:
…polls have repeatedly demonstrated that around two-thirds of French people support Macron’s health pass. Despite their visibility on the streets of major French cities over successive weekends in recent months, the measure’s opponents make up just 20 to 25 percent of the population, surveys show.
Most importantly, the Covid pass saw France’s vaccination rate surge. More than a million people made a vaccine appointment in the 24 hours after Macron’s July 12 announcement that a health pass would soon be required for public venues. Almost 10 million people got a first dose over the subsequent month.
When Macron first unveiled the health pass, only 54 percent of the French population had received one dose. That figure has since jumped to 75 percent, with France leapfrogging ahead of the UK, the US and Germany in the vaccination race.
The president introduced the measure amid an alarming new rise in Covid cases as the highly transmissible Delta variant took hold in France. That surge reached its zenith when the seven-day rolling average passed25,000 in August – but sank to less than 4,000 by October 13 after the upswing in vaccinations had taken effect.
“The health pass can certainly be seen as a success,” [University of Chichester professor Andrew] Smith said. “It allowed the Macron government to reverse a very bad wave of Covid that was hitting France severely.
“There’s definitely a connection between people learning to live with the pass – realising that it’s a minor inconvenience that has led to a big sense of security and freedom – and the uptake of vaccinations,” Smith continued. “Experience showed much of the scaremongering about vaccines and the pass to be ridiculous – and in this way, the health pass helped defeat a wider reluctance to get a jab, except among a core of people for whom any measure would be a step too far” [Tom Wheeldon, “Covid Health Pass Prevails over French Vaccine Scepticism in Boost for Macron,” France 24, 2021.10.14].
The French have put the lie to Rep. Jon Hansen’s ridiculous claim that vaccine mandates don’t promote civil liberties. France’s pass sanitaire proves that the road to real liberty lies in requiring people to get their shots so we can go out and enjoy our civil liberties with far less risk of making our friends and neighbors sick.
Oh those nasty facts. Would the Governor care to comment on thus?
My wife, Anne, is a French citizen and is currently in Rouen, Normandy teaching her students how to enter the nation’s largest industry, travel and tourism. She would hasten to add that, in addition to the “vaccine passport,” another “stick” used by the Macron government to get French citizens vaccinated is taking away free Covid testing from citizens who have yet to be vaccinated, while allowing those who have been vaccinated to continue receiving free tests. Up to this point, many of those not wanting to be vaccinated have been abusing the free-testing policy by being tested every week or even as often as every few days. Is it time to pull the plug on free testing in the U.S. for those who refuse to be vaccinated?
BTW, I no longer hold U.S. health insurance and receive most of my medical care in France, so I’m not even sure whether Covid testing is still free for everyone (or most everyone) in the U.S. But I do know that, just prior to Anne’s last trip back to France, she was notified by her airline that a PCR Covid test was required to take a flight across the Atlantic, so we dutifully trooped out to Sanford’s clinic near the airport to have her tested on a Saturday or Sunday morning a day or two before her departure. The clinic wasn’t sure she could get the results fast enough to hightail it home, but she did get her results (negative) in time and made her flight. She was charged about $300 for the test, and later was told by a representative of the airline that an immediate-turnaround spit test would have been adequate. Another victory for the U.S. healthcare BUSINESS.
I’ve needed to prove my vaccine status three times this week, to enter private events.
The ballet, the symphony, and an art museum.
I believe all state and federal buildings in CO require a vaccine card check, also.
We in CO use the free Colorado Card app on our phones.
It’s similar to opening a bitcoin account or an account with an online stock brokerage firm.
You upload a photo of your drivers license or state i.d., photos of your insurance cards, and any other card you choose.
Your drivers license access’ the Federal vaccination records and your vaccine card appears in the file of information.
It’s all accessed with facial identification.
When waiting in line for an event, a card checker verifies your status and puts a wrist band on your wrist to show the ticket taker you’re cleared.
*I just checked and my vaccine card doesn’t yet show the Pfizer booster jab, received three weeks ago.
PS … Colorado has also stopped providing free Covid tests to the unvaccinated.
They were taking advantage of the available money and using tests to pass entrance requirements.
Governor Polis explained that we the group shouldn’t pay for a person’s tests who’s choosing not to get a free vaccine.
You can still us a negative test for entry but it’s no longer free.
However, since I’m fully vaccinated, I requested free tests from the State Health Department and was mailed four, fifteen minute testing kits, free.
They asked me why I needed them and the answer that I go to many public events was sufficient.
Well it is nice to know that Noem and DeSantis represent a small minority. The Vaccinated need to be angry and show it.
Were I to put this in terms of an internal/external world dichotomy such as that described by Giovanna Rita Di Ceglie in her work on the emergence of symbolic thought within an individual, Rep. Hansen evidently has yet to fathom the external reality of a deadly viral pandemic for whatever reason, be it an inability to cope with external reality or be it an insular existence divorced from the world-at-large ravaged by the pandemic. In such individuals there is a disconnect between their external world and the internal world of their available symbolic representations, according to Di Ceglie. Hansen projects his warped internal representation (concentration camp imported from his paucity of knowledge of the historical external world) onto the current external world of a viral pandemic which latter has nothing to do with a concentration camp nor life-preserving mandates he foolishly likens to Nazi slogans such as “arbeit macht frei,” a slogan devised to fool its victims.
Such people seem to constitute a growing sector of our population. Macron’s pass sanitaire mandate and similar leaders who step up to the plate with uniform population mandates are the only thing that will save them from themselves, and us from them.
Those Frenchy bossturds. Chickening out again.
Take your shots, Frency!
Sorry. Mr. Anderson, grudznick is vaccinated, and grudznick is angry, and if you were to attend the Conservatives with Common Sense breakfasting this weekend you would hear about it during the Opening Rant, sir. There is a fellow, and he knows who he is, that is going to get a jabbing that day.
All of you screeching for mandates should take a close look at the queen of political
Opportunism, Kristi Noem. Noem was for locking things down before she was against. She was instrumental in shutting down Smithfield and issued executive orders telling counties to shutdown but she campaigns nationwide claiming she was always against her own lockdown efforts 🤦🏻♀️
As inflation sucks the value of people’s dollar and as the adverse effects of these shots are becoming more apparent even as people are not protected from getting COVID and continue to die? The push back we see across the nation and world with widespread “F*** Joe Biden!?” is an indication of how elections are going to pan out. We are already seeing evidence of that in SD with no Democrat candidates running against Noem or for Congress.
There’s a reason why we are seeing mass migration of Americans away from liberal areas.
The backlash is growing against the COVID authoritarianism. Democrats would be wise to pull a Noem and run from your past.
Maxing out every hospital in every state sounds like an iffy prescription for economic development unless it’s to boost health care costs and accelerate South Dakota’s brain drain.
Nothing screams maxed out hospitals like firing hospital staff en masse due to refusing to get a questionable ineffective vaccination. When the propaganda narrative fails due to repeated flip-flips, and brazen hypocrisy? You may want to take a note from the queen of political
opportunism and realize people are rebelling more and more against the failed propaganda.
We purportedly have more people catching COVID-19 then last year despite the majority of people having received the shots. Credibility is lost with the general public and they are refusing more and more to be herded by hypocritical politicians.
That “F*** Joe Biden!” People are screaming at maxed out sports games? That should tell you the mood of the public is past tired of the propaganda and panic being sold to justify the authoritarianism people are tired of.
Well grudz. Glad your vaccinated. Right after I get my moderna booster I’m starting up pool night again, those unvaccinated can just go screw themselves. It’s Tuesday night folks. By the way grudz how are those freedom fries you eat, I still prefer French fries.
Well well, DD, its always nice to read sheer stupidity. Please keep it up, I always need a good laugh.
By the way DD, without your shot your eleven times more likely to die than I am. Have a grate day.
Our Lady of the Arroyo is a retired RN who has been getting pleas from Sanford and other red state hospitals to work as a traveler for $120/hour.
She, the mother of my daughters, the Odd Goddess of Basin are all registered nurses, so are neighbors and friends Tim, Micki, Lisa, Matthew, Leslie, Maria, Joan, Lori and Sarah. Each one loathes Trumpism as does every other medical professional they know who will never, ever vote for a Republican again.
Mr Anderson, Ignore your “stupid” lying eyes and ears all you wish. People are tired of the propaganda, lies, and hypocrisy of those who impose these measures. Maybe the chant “F*** Joe Biden” means something different where you maintain your head; however, in the real world? It does not bode well for Democrats. And no.. science shows your ineffective shot does not supersede the immunities I have from having recovered from COVID-19 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/
Mr. Kurtz, people are swarming to red states fleeing Democrats COVID-19 measures. There will be less elected Democrats in SD come next election as well as nationally, your echo chamber denial not withstanding.
It’s important to remember that the federal government is the largest single landowner and preeminent employer in South Dakota. That’s unlikely to change any time soon since mooching off taxpayers while coddling the 1% is the Farrar construct.
Disgusyed Dakotan….the vaccine (I’m a Moderna Man, three shots into it) is very, very effecctive from preventing Covid 19 and breakthrough variants…your chances of dying on Moderna from a breakthrough variant are infintisimal. Wake up and smell the coffee, Joe Biden is a national hero.
DD, for every Trumpist that makes a big splash about moving to Rapid from California there are thousands of Californians just moving around the West Coast states. CA grew by 2M people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. NYC grew by about 10% in the same time period, to well over 8M people.
Your rantings here are just sad and embarrassing.
Well DD my ineffective shot is working fine, how’s yours? You can check multiple medical sources on the vaccines, you aren’t Jimmie Jordon are you? He’s equally disgusting. By the way Biden got over seven million more votes than your lying loser. Stick with the proper ganders at foxie they won’t steer you wrong. By the way, next election, my vote cancels yours. Have a great evening.
Frenchie fries are fine, Mr. Anderson, especially if you put cheese and gravy on them, but the best way to eat taters is fried, with gravy, or baked, with butter and cream, or sliced and fried, or stuffed with ham or mashed with brown gravy, or baked twice and then fed back into the original package…let us face it, even the French cannot mess up preparing taters for eating.