A screening drive, in Grenoble, mid-June. - ALLILI MOURAD / SIPA

  • If the health services lacked Covid-19 screening tests at the start of the crisis, this is no longer the case in France.
  • Despite a capacity of 700,000 tests per week, only 30,000 to 40,000 tests have been performed each day for the past few weeks.
  • This “low” number of tests carried out can be explained by the lack of qualified personnel to carry them out. But also because patients do not rush to screening centers. For fear of the result, of confinement or of disinterest.

We heard it for weeks: to avoid reconfiguration in the event of a second epidemic wave of Covid-19, tests and masks are needed. A priori, we now have both. But if we see the beginnings of a second wave - perhaps before the end of the summer according to the head of the scientific council, Jean-François Delfraissy -, more and more French men and women seem to be avoiding the mask stage and also the test stage.

For weeks, every day, between 30,000 and 40,000 tests have been carried out in France: this is much, much more than at the start of the epidemic, of course. But it is much less than the capacity announced for the start of deconfinement: 700,000 tests per week. A problem with reagents, which France missed so much in March? Not at all. According to François Blanchecotte, the president of the Syndicat des biologistes (which brings together the city's medical analysis laboratories, which do a good part of the Covid tests), the laboratories are sufficiently supplied.

A human problem

"On the other hand, we have a problem with samplers," he said at 20 Minutes . “The implementation of mass screening is made difficult by organizational issues. According to him, to do the tests, PCR and serological, it takes five minutes for a laboratory assistant or a laboratory assistant. “If we want to do things well, we must wash the room after each patient. Both for them and for us. I would remind you that so far, there have been no deaths from the medical biology side. "

The Union of Biologists calls for a "white city plan". That is to say, the mobilization of all people capable of taking samples, up to nurses, even those who are not yet graduates. Without that, the decision, for example, taken in Mayenne to massively screen the population of the department for more than 10 years (around 300,000 people) is unrealistic. "Our staff are also on their knees and also ask to go on vacation, this is legitimate," explains François Blanchecotte.

Do not miss the holidays?

Lack of staff does not explain everything, however. We can wonder if the French will be tested when they suspect contamination. To get tested, remember that you have to go to your city doctor, when you have not gone through the emergency room, to receive a prescription (the tests are covered 100% by Health Insurance). Too complicated a procedure? Not so sure, if we are to believe the president of the Syndicate of biologists: "The populations exempt from going to the doctor are already numerous: health personnel, people who work in places that welcome the public, but also those identified in a cluster… ”

Is it not then the "relaxation" observed by Jean-François Delfraissy? François Blanchecotte notes a drop in consultations with general practitioners for suspected Covid-19: “Screening centers created for the occasion are even closing. "

For Jean-Christophe Nogrette, doctor in Limoges and assistant secretary general of MG France, the national federation of general practitioners, the fear of quarantine would be the main cause of a drop in tests, especially during this holiday period: people are afraid of being confined if they test positive. You add the entourage survey and tests for loved ones, and you get a crippling effect on the patients. "

The doctor also notes a form of distrust of certain patients towards the authorities. From the comparison with the flu at the start of the crisis to the management of masks, government procrastination was right in the confidence of some, says Jean-Christophe Nogrette: "Out of 25 patients per day, I always have at least one or two who tell me they don't want to hear about viruses anymore. "

A reaction to anxiety

If the doctor receives people every day who ardently wish to be screened, there is another category of patients who, conversely, fear more than all this stage. Boris Guimpel, behavioral psychologist, explains the anxiety linked to screening: “The question of knowing whether one is infected or not is too agonizing for some. Rather than confront reality with the test, these people prefer to escape uncertainty by avoiding the subject. But it's a vicious circle. In the short term it relieves, but it feeds anxiety in the longer term. "

The therapist warns against the disorders caused by this behavior which would, according to him, affect between 15 and 20% of the European population. Boris Guimpel therefore encourages patients to "expose themselves to the object of their fear" and to go and take the test to get rid of it.

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  • Screening
  • Society
  • Covid 19
  • Confinement
  • Coronavirus