Since the implementation of the extended sanitary pass, pharmacies have been crumbling under requests for antigenic tests.
Some even sell out for ten days at particularly busy vacation spots.
A difficult situation for pharmacists to accept, who did not expect to have to take on this mass screening.
REPORTAGE
For leisure, the health pass has entered French life for three days now.
Go for a drink, eat at a restaurant, watch a movie at the cinema… It is now necessary to present your QR code to have access to these activities.
So since then, pharmacies have been taken by storm.
In front of the pharmacies, it is indeed the rush towards antigenic tests, where the staff is doing as best they can to meet the demand.
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"We turn five times and then we take out the cotton swab."
These gestures, Sima knows them by heart.
For six months, this student has been carrying out Covid tests in a tent in front of this pharmacy in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
And since the implementation of the health pass, the pace has accelerated.
"Today, we had 80 people. Before, we did between 25 and 30 a day," she notes.
"It's especially for people who want to travel or do activities. But it's a bit
speed,
" admits the young woman.
"Not there to test all passing tourists"
In the queue, dozens of people came hoping to recover their precious sesame, namely a negative test of less than 72 hours.
Among them, Aloïs, who has just gone through the swab step in the nose to be able to sip a beer with his friends.
"I have not yet been vaccinated, I do not have the first dose because I admit that I was lazy. But tonight, I have to go on the terrace to join some friends so for the moment I am happy of the test, "admits the patient who says he is considering getting vaccinated in the next few days.
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In a nearby pharmacy, the influx of test requests even crashed the computer system. A situation that Théodore deplores, himself a pharmacist in this business. "Initially, we were simply there to serve our patients and those who had symptoms so that they could return to their families without fear. But we are not here to test all passing tourists", warns this professional who repeats it: pharmacies are not made for mass screening.