TEST COVID. The approach of the end of the year holidays, many French have decided to test the Covid-19, to avoid contaminating their loved ones at gatherings of Christmas and New Year. In the Face of this explosion of PCR assays and antigenic, caregivers must adapt.
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[updated December 28, 2020 at 12.25 p.m] While the New Year’s eve approaching, the rush for testing Covid is expected to continue in France. On Monday 21 December and Tuesday 22nd December, more than a million and a half tests, PCR and antigen have been made in the Hexagon, as indicated by public Health France on Christmas day. In the week of 14 to 20 December, this are 2.35 million of tests that have been conducted. An explosion due to the rallies organised on the occasion of the celebration of the end of the year. To meet this attendance to the less predictable, the caregivers had to organize. “Many laboratories have hired 15 to 20 % more staff since September and have kept,” said the president of the syndicate of biologists François Blanchecotte, in Paris this Saturday, the 26th of December. And to add : “We have installed more collection centres on opening hours extended to match the habits of life of the people, sometimes 10h-19h.”
If the PCR accounted for 70 % of the total number of tests from 14 to 20 December, the number of antigenic testing has tripled. Easy to access and delivers the results quickly, this type of testing is not a “totem immunity”, emphasized the minister of Health Olivier Véran. It is therefore essential to adhere to several rules. Here they are below.
it is Necessary to do a test Covid before the New Year ?
The government has not accepted the proposal of the opposition which called for a large-scale campaign of mass screening of the population between 18 and 24 December (for Christmas), and then between 6 and 13 January (for New Year). According to the minister of Health Olivier Véran, “test to test” has no meaning, especially if we are not able to isolate the positive cases by the following. Especially, the abilities of tests today are largely inadequate : “We can’t test the 20 million people in two days !”, has annoyed a close friend of Emmanuel Macron recently with the newspaper Le Monde.
The message is therefore the following : do you test if you are part of the “target audiences”, in other words, if you have symptoms of a Covid, or if you have a case contact. It is officially not recommended to go and get tested “just in case”, if we do not present the symptoms of Covid. The objective is two-fold. First, it is not engorged, laboratories, and pharmacies, to achieve the antigenic testing since mid-November. It is best to leave the place to the priority groups who need it the most. Then, it is necessary to avoid letting yourself go to a “false sense of protection”, in the words of Olivier Véran. “Please, do not use the test as a sort of totem of immunity”, asked the latter on 10 December, at a press conference.
This risk of “false protection” is particularly strong when the test is performed at the wrong time. Too far away from the holidays, it leaves the possibility to the person being tested to be contaminated after the screening. But too close to the holidays, it can also be the subject of a “false negative”. In other words : the person tested may have the Covid, but be incubating or present a viral load too low. In this case, the virus will not be detected while he is there and can be passed on during family gatherings. This second scenario is most likely still with the antigenic testing, that are not as reliable as the PCR tests.
How to make a test Covid before December 31 ?
nevertheless, It is possible, if you really want to, make a test Covid before the New year’s eve, December 31. The scientific Council does not recommend not testing before the holidays. In an opinion dated December 12, 2020 and made public on Monday 14 December, the experts who advise the government have, however, asked a very precise frame. First, the test must be systematic for symptomatic persons “in the week before the days of 24, 25, 31 December and 1 January”.
“A test antigen can be achieved if the onset of symptoms is recent (< 3 days) and a test RT-PCR if the onset of symptoms is older (⩾4 days)," says the scientific Council. As a reminder, as we anticipate the holidays or not, antigenic tests are recommended, in general, when one has the symptoms of the coronavirus, which has less than 65 years old and you do not present risk factors. Vulnerable patients must orientate to a laboratory for PCR testing.
If you do not have a
