Paris: At the pharmacy in Central Paris, Mireille Grand points to the shelves close to empty where it will usually have a Covid-19 test.
Only five tests are left.
“That’s all left!” she says.
“This is caused by a sharp increase from many people, many cases of Covid contact.
We have to do a lot of tests.” In all of France, the pharmacy said they had run Covid tests as cases of rising and people scramble to ensure they did not take the risk of being contaminated by loved ones while they met in the holiday season.
Nearly 5.3 million PCR and antigen tests were conducted from November 9 to December 5, official data showed, the highest number in the month and a 31% increase in the previous week, itself around the previous week.
In the last week of October, only around 2 million tests were carried out, but the number of tests had increased steadily since then.
“There are many people who come to take tests to ensure they are not infected with Covid-19 for meetings, to go meet their families,” said the Grand pharmacist.
He has ordered a new test but the shipping is longer than usual, he said, as a pharmacy throughout the country and outside of mounds to get more tests.
He usually has a stock of 30 boxes of 25 tests each.
France sees an increase in cases, and is hospitalized by Covid-19, even if, thanks to one of the highest level of vaccination in Europe, there is a lack of impact on the number of hospitals than the previous wave of pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Health Olivier Veran said that 12.5 million people in France had received a shot for the covid-19 vaccine amplifier, with a number set up to 20 million at Christmas.
It comes with more work for pharmacies, which have been driven by health authorities to stay open on Sundays to get more vaccinated people.