French biologists and pharmacists conducted a record number of COVID-19 tests the week following the extension of the country’s “health pass” to restaurants, trains and other activities.
A health pass and QR code are provided for people who have been vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 in the last six months, but it also applies to people who have been negative in the last 48 hours (for a quick test) or 72 hours (for a PCR test).
The effort, seen in large part as a way to encourage the population to get a COVID-19 stroke, has extended those performing the millions of tests.
“We are really at our best and it will be very difficult to go further,” Henry-Pierre Doermann, vice-president of the laboratory workers’ union, told AFP.
According to Public Health France, more than 5.6 million coronavirus tests (PCR and rapid) were performed in week 32, between August 9 and 15.
This increased significantly from the previous week, when 4.15 million tests were performed.
Union leaders said this was largely due to pharmacies conducting more tests in recent weeks instead of labs. Currently, at least 12,000 pharmacies can test people out of a total of 21,000.
French citizens had rushed to take coronavirus vaccines after President Emmanuel Macron announced the extension of the health permit in mid-July, with more than a million reserved appointments in the 16 hours following his speech.
However, vaccine uptake has declined slightly, falling by thousands a day over the past week. People receiving the first dose have dropped significantly from 2.6 million in late July to 1.1 million last week.
The government aims to vaccinate 50 million people with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of August.
Currently, at least 47 million people have received a first dose (approximately 70% of the population) and 40 million people have received a complete vaccination cycle (about 60.7% of the population), according to the Ministry of Health.
There are 58 million people eligible for the vaccine in France.
The least vaccinated segment of the adult population is the group between 30 and 39 years old, where 73.5% of people are vaccinated, according to Doctolib.
The government will also soon focus its campaign on children aged 12 to 17, of whom only 55% are vaccinated.