Covid-19 in the United States: before Christmas, difficult to get screening tests

In Times Square, New York, the queues to be tested for Covid-19 are endless, as here on December 17, 2021, as the holiday season approaches.

AP - Yuki Iwamura

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In the country, as elsewhere in the world, the number of cases of Covid-19 is increasing and fears related to the Omicron variant raise fears of the worst.

As the holiday season approaches, this creates a great demand for drug tests.

It has become difficult to get hold of them and the queues are getting longer.

Advertising

Read more

With our correspondent in Washington,

Before going to get together as a family, it is better to be sure that you are not a carrier of the coronavirus, especially with the

highly transmissible

.

This precautionary measure is shared by many Americans.

As a result, there is great pressure on screening tests.

Rapid or antigenic tests are taken by storm, as are the PCR tests required for some international travel.

There are hardly any dates.

The deadlines for obtaining results are lengthening beyond what some countries ask for.

Being in America, it is possible, for an additional fee, to get expedited processing.

In theory anyway, since even for these VIP tests, laboratory analysis capacities are also under great pressure.

Self-tests almost not found

Queues are stretching everywhere, especially in large cities.

In New York, for example, they sometimes go around the blocks where pharmacies are located.

In those same pharmacies, since this weekend, it has become virtually impossible to find self-tests.

However, during his last intervention on the subject,

announced an effort on access to these tests at home.

Obviously insufficient effort.

No doubt he will talk about it again in his next statement on the subject scheduled for Tuesday, December 21.

► To read also: American companies tighten the screw in the face of Covid-19

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• United States

• Coronavirus

• Health and medicine

• Vaccines