France Covid: Mass vaccination centre forced to close due to lack of demand

The jabs were being offered at a mass vaccination centre in Nice’s Palais des Expositions this weekend, with 4,000 available to those aged over 55 in high-risk occupations, meaning 3,000 teachers eligible to take part.

But the centre was forced to close after just four hours on Saturday due to lack of demand with just 58 appointments registered, and did not reopen today despite being scheduled to do so.

That means the take-up rate among eligible teachers was just 2 per cent, with one local official blaming vaccine hesitancy caused by scaremongering around the British-made jab.

Anne Frackowiak-Jacobs, sub-prefect of nearby Grasse, said people had ‘turned around’ when they learned they would be given AstraZeneca.

A mass vaccination centre at the Palais des Expositions in Nice was forced to close yesterday after just 58 people turned up for 4,000 available jabs

The Palais des Expositions opened at 9am on Saturday and was due to administer jabs all weekend, but closed at 1pm and will not reopen on Sunday due to lack of demand

Macron previously described the AstraZeneca jab as ‘quasi-ineffective’ in older people and limited its use to the young, before flip-flopping after data suggested a link to very rare blood clots in the young, restricting it to older people instead.

That has led to ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among French people – already Europe’s biggest vaccine-skeptics – with a survey last month showing 61 per cent of people now think the AstraZeneca jab is ‘unsafe.’