Aid group vaccinates migrants as France expands virus pass

PARIS (AP) — Vaccination rates are picking up again in France as the government requires a virus pass for more and more activities — but social workers worry that the measure will further marginalize migrants and other poor populations.

So aid group Doctors Without Borders has set up a tent this summer in northeast Paris to vaccinate migrants, homeless people and others without access to state or private health insurance. Aid groups are carrying out similar actions in other countries, too.

“People think that these people wouldn’t need a vaccine passport,” Cristiana Castro, who oversees Doctors Without Borders’ COVID operations in France, told The Associated Press. But “they often need to access public places for housing, administrative processes, and they worry that one day the passport would be required to access those, and it creates a lot of anxiety.”

A line of about 30 people had already started to form when the tents opened Thursday, most of them migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan African countries. Many of them arrived only recently in France.

“I’m feeling good because today I’m getting the COVID vaccine, and after I’ll feel safe,” Mdamasud Parves, a migrant from Bangladesh who arrived six months ago, told the AP. Doctors Without Borders gave Parves his first shot of a Pfizer vacine, and an appointment for the second dose in three weeks.

Since President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on July 12 that a “health pass” would be needed in restaurants, trains and many other places around France, the vaccination rate at the Doctors Without Borders tent site has risen from about 25 people to 120 people a day.

To get the health pass, people must be fully vaccinated or have proof of a negative test or recent recovery from the virus.

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