"All to your gargles" ("Alles Gurgelt"): this program, the idea of ​​which spread at the end of 2020 within the municipality to fight against the pandemic, is running at full speed in the face of the outbreak of cases linked to the Omicron variant.

Equipped with kits provided free of charge, the Viennese exercise almost daily in front of their computer screen before bringing the test tube back to the corner store.

The results are known within 24 hours, accompanied by a PCR test certificate – a sesame regularly requested in this alpine country of 8.9 million inhabitants, from school to the opera or sports activities.

“It is extremely unrestrictive”, sums up the CEO of the Lifebrain laboratory, Michael Havel, to explain the success of the system.

Employees of the Lifebrain laboratory scan the barcodes of PCR test samples, in Vienna on February 1, 2022 ALEX HALADA AFP

In the premises located on a large hospital complex, the pace is frantic for the 1,800 full-time employees, a third of whom have been recruited over the last two months.

Day and night, workers of dozens of nationalities flock there to scan the barcodes of the tubes, uncap them before the liquid is analyzed by machines.

The laboratory can examine up to 800,000 tests per day.

A disputed usefulness

From "Gurgel tests" to those carried out in pharmacies or in various health establishments, Austria has carried out 145 million since the start of the pandemic, which has killed more than 14,000 people in the country.

Currently, nearly 80 daily tests are recorded per 1,000 inhabitants (on an average of 7 days), compared to only 15 in France and 4 in Germany, which places it in the leading pack globally, according to estimates from the Our website. world in data.

This policy of mass testing, funded by taxpayers' money, comes at a steep price - 2.6 billion euros in 2021 alone, according to press reports - for a usefulness recently disputed by some.

Employees of the Lifebrain company dispose of empty packaging of PCR test samples, in Vienna, on February 1, 2022 ALEX HALADA AFP

"Until now, this strategy was fully justified, but now with Omicron, everything is different", recognizes Ulrich Elling, researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who participated in the development of the gargling method.

"If we are counting on a scenario of collective immunity, we must ask ourselves the question of the meaning" of tests aimed at limiting the spread of infections, he underlines.

But the boss of Lifebrain, a company founded in 2013 and mainly present in Italy before the emergence of the coronavirus, is not ready to reduce the sails and even wants to extend the activity to other Austrian regions.

“We can do without tests only when the pandemic is defeated”, assures Mr. Havel, already predicting “a new wave in the fall”.

© 2022 AFP