Why has the executive streamlined the anti-Covid testing protocol?

• In a France with more than 200,000 cases of coronavirus per day, the government has decided ... to lighten the testing protocols.

  A choice which seems paradoxical, but which can be explained by the simple law of supply and demand.

• These new protocols should allow more tests to be offered for new people, but also potentially allow the epidemic to escape even more.

• Explanations with the biologist Maxime Saul.

Records that keep being broken.

More than a million coronavirus screening tests are currently carried out every day in France.

This corresponds to 15.19 tests per 1,000 people on average, which places France in the top 10 countries that test their population the most, according to the reference site OurWorldInData.

A madness of tests which pushed the government to adapt (again) the health protocols for the contact cases and for certain positive cases and this, from this Friday.

What is changing and why? 

takes stock with biologist Maxime Saul.

What is the new health protocol on the testing side?

A PCR test is no longer mandatory to confirm a positive antigen test, as was the case until now. The PCR test nevertheless remains compulsory following a positive self-test, which is much less reliable, in order to confirm the result. This test also makes it possible to make the declaration on the SI-DEP platform of the Ministry of Health, which makes it possible to validate his sick leave or his isolation for the employer if this is necessary, but also to obtain a certificate of recovery at the after one week, avoiding unnecessary vaccination (contamination counting as one dose).

Regarding the health protocol in schools, a child in a class with a positive case will always have to do three tests: a PCR or antigen test, then two self-tests on D + 2 and D + 4. If all three are negative, the pupil can stay in class. This rule has been established since last Sunday by the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer. But less than a week after its entry into force, a slight relaxation has just been noted: if within the seven days, another child tests positive, the screening cycle of three tests is not restarted for the other students. "The screening cycle only restarts if the second confirmed case has had contact with the other students after a period of seven days following the identification of the first case", now specifies the protocol.

Why is the test protocol reduced in the midst of an epidemic wave?

Queue of several hours in front of the screening centers, tensions, bug of the SI-DEP platform: the testing capacity in France is reaching saturation point. In fact, lightening the protocol makes it possible to test more people with so many tests. This is especially true for the abandonment of confirmation of the positive antigen test with a PCR test. "These confirmation tests represented 15 to 20% of PCR tests, so this represents 15 to 20% of appointment slots for PCR" screening "less," notes biologist Maxime Saul. This measure has the advantage of not risking "liberating" positive people and, notes the expert interviewed by

, this only isolates false positive negative people with the antigen (a very rare case).

For the school protocol, the logic is the same: it represents less tests to be done, therefore more people can be tested.

This also relieves the workload of teachers and parents, who had to check or perform tests almost every day with the old protocol from the beginning of the week.

The biologist is nevertheless very skeptical, evoking a "denial": "There is probably a sin of pride with the counting of closed classes, where we see that the protocol is evolving to close less and less: first at least case, then three cases, then no limit now.

"

Is this protocol consistent?

Maxime Saul attacks bluntly: “It's nonsense. We do not test at the most important moment, D + 5 or D + 7, peak probability of being positive after a contact case, and we ask to do self-tests on D + 2 and D + 4, it is that is, too early. The biologist recalls that the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended a third antigen test on D + 6, a period which seems to him much more appropriate to test the positivity or not of case-contact children.

Close to the population, the biologist who himself performs numerous tests continues: “People are lost with the new protocols. They do not question the tests and have even understood very well the interest of preventing contact cases, even if there is a certain weariness concerning the epidemic. "

A Covid-19 epidemic that appears to be uncontrollable, with more than 200,000 cases per day on average.

And Maxime Saul concludes: “Clearly, the government is letting the virus slip away with these recent protocols.

He now judges it only on the resuscitation figures, which are currently slowly increasing.

This deprives us of any anticipation because there is a ripple effect which means that if the intensive care units fill up, braking measures will have an impact only two weeks later.

"

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Coronavirus: Does testing still make sense with 300,000 cases per day?

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Coronavirus: Too many tests, absence of teachers ... For parents, "the new protocol is unmanageable"

• Covid 19

• Coronavirus

• epidemic

• Health pass

• Anti-covid vaccine

• Health

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