We knew that a large-scale covid screening campaign was to be launched in mid-December in large French cities. During the press conference of Prime Minister Jean Castex, this December 10, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran revealed which were the territories selected to participate in this campaign.
The metropolis of the Ardennes Charleville-Mézières will be the first to host a massive screening operation from December 14 to 19. It was the metropolis that made the request to the State services because the department of the Ardennes is currently the one with the highest incidence rate. Another screening will be organized on the same dates in the urban community of Le Havre Seine Métropole.
Will follow, during the week of January 11 to 16, the municipalities of Saint Etienne and of Roubaix (in the Lille conurbation).
How will this mass screening take place?
Free and not compulsory, the tests will be offered to the inhabitants of these agglomerations on dedicated sites (in rooms or tents). With a multidisciplinary team on site (doctors, nurses, members of health insurance, etc.) 2 samples will be taken each time: un antigen test will be performed on the first. If it turns out to be negative, a more reliable PCR test will then be carried out on the second sample.
Positive patients who so wish can be isolated in a room or a reception facility. The others will benefit from support and follow-up.
Why this mass screening?
The objective of this “mass testing” is simple: test quickly and massively on a dense territory so as not to let too many positive cases slip through the cracks. “The virus does not circulate only through sick people but through people who do not know they are contagious. They must therefore be found. This can only be done by testing everyone”, estimates epidemiologist Catherine Hill.
Before the senators on December 2, the Prime Minister said he hoped to draw from these experiments “preventive and curative lessons”, in particular concerning the populations and places of life most affected by the disease. For this large-scale test campaign based on volunteering, student nurses could be trained and mobilized.
Slovakia as well as the city of Liverpool, in Great Britain, launched mass-testing operations last October and November. Austria should also offer its entire population to take a test during the week before the end of the year holidays. In Italy, the province of South Tyrol, neighboring Austria, should follow the same example.
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