Every day people queue for hours to get a PCR test. These intolerable conditions were foreseeable and were deliberately brought about, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The Senate offers a free PCR test for citizens who are positive in the rapid test. However, only eleven test centers were commissioned to issue the free PCR test.
Due to the currently very high number of infections, these eleven test centers are completely overloaded.
We reported on Berliners who stood in line on the street in the cold for up to three hours just to get a PCR test. This is completely absurd, because anyone who has tested positive for Corona should actually go into quarantine and not stand in line with hundreds of other people.
These actually intolerable conditions at the eleven test centers are not a new phenomenon. Already on January 10, the waiting times were up to two hours.
The Health Senator Gote (Greens) is well aware of this. “The Senate is aware that there are currently long queues and waiting times in front of the Senate’s own test centers,” said her spokeswoman ten days ago.
Now we asked again: Why are only these eleven overburdened test centers offered and not more? We received an evasive answer: “Free PCR tests are also carried out in the commercial test centers if the rapid PoC test previously carried out in the same test center was positive.”
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That’s true, but then you have to order the rapid antigen test from the commercial test center. There it costs 19.90 euros. A family with two children would pay 79.60 euros. Who has this money left? So you go to the free quick test centers. But then again you don’t get a free PCR test.
As early as five weeks ago, the health administration knew that many more people would be infected than before due to the omicron variant. So many more people would have to do a PCR test after a positive rapid test, that was clear.
Nevertheless, no other test centers were commissioned to issue free PCR tests. No precautions were taken, not even when the situation had already escalated ten days ago.
Now, to make matters worse, the laboratory capacities are also becoming scarce and the health senator is hoping for a prioritization, so that not everyone who is positive in the rapid test will have to do a PCR test.
Sounds good, but once again the logic of this thought just doesn’t make sense to me: Until now, the PCR test was considered “gold currency”, the only reliable proof of an infection and also of the subsequent recovery. So not anymore? Now suddenly the rapid antigen test is sufficient, as Herr Lauterbach claims?
Honestly, nobody understands that anymore: They all just muddle along, know little and say something different every day. They are great when it comes to prohibiting and prescribing, but when it comes to prevention, they fail badly.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]
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