The usefulness of the Covid-19 screening test campaign in France

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As of this week, 700,000 weekly tests for Covid-19 must take place in France. Tests that were very lacking at the start of the crisis with shortage situations. Today, however, the situation seems to have improved. This is necessary, because a massive screening policy is necessary to keep the epidemic under control.

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Locate, test, isolate. This is the triptych applied in many countries to stem the dynamics of the Covid-19 epidemic, a doctrine now applied in France with the lifting of containment.

In the center there are therefore the tests and in particular the virological tests. They make it possible to say if someone at an instant T is contaminated. It must now be done on all people who have respiratory symptoms.

"  It is all the people who will have a little sore throat, a cold, a cough, a little fever and who will have to be tested, and this on a daily basis. And very quickly we actually arrive at figures which are in the order of 100,000  people who have tests to perform every day, which is absolutely considerable to say in the end it is a few thousand who will actually be affected by Covid- 19 but which must be identified since it will be necessary to be able to isolate them very quickly,  ”explains Arnaud Fontanet, member of the Covid-19 Scientific Council.

There are also serological tests. They make it possible to know if someone has ever been in contact with the disease.

"  They will tell you: you have been in contact with the virus , but today we are unable to tell you whether this contact, even if you have detectable antibodies in the blood, is accompanied by protection, that is to say if you can consider yourself protected from reinfection,  ”adds Arnaud Fontanet.

However, these tests are currently less reliable than screening tests. However, they remain of interest to the authorities since they can make it possible to determine what part of the population has been infected.

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