Last week, more than fifteen thousand people visited a corona test street of a GGD. Nevertheless, the GGD will retain a basic capacity of 30,000 corona tests, so that the service can quickly scale up. That is what a spokesperson for the GGD told NU.nl.
Last week, only more than fifteen thousand people visited a corona test street of the GGD, of whom just over ten thousand received a positive test result. That is a significant drop from the peak of the last corona wave, when hundreds of thousands of people visited the test streets every week.
“Now that a PCR test at the GGD is the standard for a smaller group of people, logically fewer people come to the GGD for a corona test,” explains the spokesperson.
Nevertheless, the GGDs guarantee 30,000 tests per day. And that is necessary, so that the institute can scale up quickly when necessary, for example in the event of a major outbreak. “That can be done in a short time,” says the spokesperson.
In two weeks’ time, the institute could scale up to a national number of fifteen thousand tests per day, GGD GHOR Nederland wrote in a statement this week. position paper to the House of Representatives. A capacity of 100,000 tests per day could be reached in five weeks.
Fewer temporary workers and test locations
The basic test capacity does not mean that there is currently no one to do in the test lanes. For example, the GGD has recently deployed much fewer temporary workers than during the busy period, says the spokesperson.
Also, more and more test locations have been closed lately. The number of test locations now stands at 108, compared to about 185 at the peak.
The spokesperson does not know whether more test locations will close in the coming period. “We sail on supply and demand.” Based on this, it can be decided to limit or extend the opening hours of a test location, or to close a location completely. “We are always looking at whether it can be done more efficiently, and whether it is necessary to maintain it. We are constantly looking critically at that.”