From France’s sun-kissed Mediterranean coast to the azure waters of Italy’s Adriatic beaches and Russian Black Sea resorts, health authorities are trying to make a COVID-19 shot as much part of a European vacation this summer as sunscreen and shades for those who are not yet fully vaccinated.
The vaccinations for vacationers campaign comes with lockdowns easing in many European countries, despite concerns about variants, and nations looking to breathe new life into their ailing tourism industries.
It’s all part of an effort to maintain momentum in campaigns to protect against the pandemic that has killed more than 1 million across the continent, including in the European Union, the UK, and Russia.
The new drive to take shots to tourists is a way of adapting to Europe’s annual summer migration, when it seems whole cities empty of their residents for weeks. Those long absences from home pose a particular challenge for many nations European, where public health systems often focus on delivering vaccines to people based on where they live.
In Britain, where 70% of adults already are fully vaccinated, campaigns now are aimed at the younger generations with walk-in pop-up clinics in parks, a recent event complete with DJ at the Tate Modern museum, and shots on offer to music lovers at the Latitude Festival.
Mickael Bomard, from Le Plessis-Robinson in the Paris region, recently took his 15-year-old son Nolan to a squat building just metres from the gently lapping waves of the Mediterranean at Carry-le-Rouet, a popular holiday spot near the port city of Marseille.
“Given the measures that are being taken now and the obligations when school starts again in September, we have decided to get him vaccinated,” Bomard said.
The vaccination centre is giving shots to about 200 people each day — vacationers and locals — says Agnes Gatto, a nurse who runs the facility.
In France, where resistance to the vaccine has been particularly stubborn, a new rule came into effect last week that forces those who want to visit public sites ranging from cinemas to casinos to the Eiffel Tower to get a pass that shows they are either fully vaccinated, have tested negative for the coronavirus or recovered from COVID-19. The measure will be extended to restaurants and cafés from next month. That’s part of the reason more people are leaving the sand for a shot in the arm.
It was enough to push Bomard to take Nolan. “Not being able to go out for dinner together with the family, go to restaurants, and maybe having to find at the last minute an appointment in a packed vaccination centre in September in order for him to go to middle school,” he said.
After a slow start to vaccinations, 57% of adults in the European Union are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the bloc’s executive says. Even so, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is warning against complacency given the well-established presence in Europe of the highly contagious delta variant.
She recently said that the “variant is very dangerous. I therefore call on everyone — who has the opportunity — to be vaccinated. For their own health and to protect others.”
To that end, flexible vaccination initiatives are cropping up across Europe.
In Italy, a vaccination van is set to start circulating in the popular Adriatic Sea destination Rimini this weekend, following a similar mobile campaign at Lazio’s beaches, where many Romans have second homes. At Rome’s main airport, meanwhile, authorities this week opened a “Vax&Go” area where any traveller passing through can get a vaccine just before departure.
Ilaria Iannuzzi, a doctor at the airport facility said that its main goal “is to bring vaccination closer to people, especially by facilitating those who need it, those who couldn’t book it, or couldn’t respect their appointment.”
In Russia, which is struggling with widespread vaccine skepticism, the popular southern vacation destination of Krasnodar, a region home to the renowned Black Sea resort of Sochi, is trying to persuade the hesitant: Starting Aug. 1, it will only let visitors into hotels and spas if they have a negative coronavirus test or a vaccination certificate. Tourists with a negative test will be required to get vaccinated locally within three days of arrival.
In France, the pandemic pass appears to be having the desired effect of pushing some people skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines to get the shot anyway.
“I wasn’t really in favour of the vaccine because I’m young. I haven’t settled yet, I have no children, etc. so I’m a bit afraid of the long-term side effects,” said 24-year-old Carry-le-Rouet resident Noemie Cienzo. “But now, with the PCR tests we have to do every time we want to go out, I think I will (get vaccinated), otherwise it will become complicated.”