ANALYSIS
It's a revolution: from Monday, the so-called "PCR" tests, which make it possible to tell at the instant T - thanks to a sample from the nose and throat - whether someone is carrying the virus or not , will be intended for all people with symptoms of coronavirus and in their "contact" cases. But is France really ready to carry out 700,000 of these tests each week, previously reserved for caregivers, pregnant women and vulnerable people, as the government promises?
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High-performance machines from China
According to the actors in the chain interviewed by Europe 1, the answer is yes, even if the road was winding ... First there are 4,000 medical analysis laboratories, ready to take samples from anyone sent by their attending physician or having been in contact with a patient. In the labs, but also in thousands of "drives", open for the occasion and which will allow you to be tested by car or on foot.
And on the back line, for the analysis of samples, a hundred research laboratories and veterinary laboratories are operational. They will be able to count on high-performance machines from China and installed in around twenty teaching hospitals in France.
"We are going to have a very gradual rise"
From Monday, we will start using the machine in real conditions, so we should be able to screen for around 1,000 samples, "says Nicolas Levêque, head of the virology laboratory in Poitiers, who has just successfully pass the last test phase. "We say that we will have a very gradual increase in the number of samples .... If ever this rise were to occur. And that, we are not sure either. It is possible, and I hope that we do all this implementation for very little in the end. "
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It is the only unknown, but it is significant: how many patients will present with symptoms next week and the following to get tested? No one can tell.