French citizens 65 and older without booster losing health pass benefits

People over the age of 65 will now lose their health pass in France if they have yet to receive their COVID-19 booster shot.

Roughly 400,000 people older than 65 who are eligible for their booster shots have not taken them yet. This includes 12 percent of people older than 80 and 10 percent of people between ages 65 to 79, according to France 24.

Starting on Wednesday, people ages 65 and up who have not received their booster will have their QR code on their health pass deactivated, France 24 reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the health pass would be retracted in November if residents aged 65 and older did not receive an additional COVID-19 shot, according to CNBC. At the time, the booster was already made available to the older age group.

"Since the end of summer, a campaign has been launched to protect people over 65 as well as the most fragile among us. Today we must accelerate," Macron said at the time.

Beginning on Jan. 15, the policy will extend to people of all ages.

France requires that anyone entering a restaurant, cafe, museum, movie theater or traveling on an inter-city train show full vaccination, a negative test or a recent recovery from COVID-19 using the health pass.

If people choose not to receive their booster shot, their only option to enter these public venues will be to show a negative COVID-19 test that is no more than 24 hours old, according to the French outlet.

As of Wednesday, France had a daily average of 49,528 coronavirus infections. Just one month ago, that average was just over 10,000, according to The New York Times.