Covid-19 screening: in Toulouse, the queues are getting longer in front of Omicron
Contact cases, symptomatic people, students … waiting files are stretched out in front of screening centers and pharmacies in the region.
Jacinthe, 13, is one of the first to wait in front of the pharmacy in the Lardenne district of Toulouse. It is 2 pm and this schoolgirl is there from the opening to be tested: “I felt that I had a fever and I preferred to come immediately to be tested so as not to infect everyone.” Her mother, worried, accompanies her daughter and “depending on the result” will take the opportunity to be tested. In front of this pharmacy, which offers antigenic tests only in the afternoons, little by little, the tail lengthens.
Arrived a few minutes later, Xavier, leaning against the railing, patiently takes his pain. Tomorrow, this 33-year-old Toulousain receives his parents: “My mother has some breathing problems, so I prefer to make sure that I am not a carrier of the virus”. “I’m not contact case, but worth paying attention”. Contact case, his neighbor in line, Yannick, learned the same morning that he was: “I am a student and I have my exams at the end of January, but I still preferred to come and get tested before go back to school, “says the young man, somewhat disappointed by the situation.
“I only have a simple cold”
There were a lot of students, too, in the queue at the Toulouse CHU screening center a few hours earlier. At the end of the morning, this Thursday, Marie, a 23-year-old Andorran doctoral student, patiently waiting, FFP2 mask on her nose, to be “swabbed”. “Since yesterday, I am not feeling well and I have learned that I am in contact.” Before coming, the young woman did a self-test: “It was negative, but I prefer to make sure that I really do not have anything to isolate myself quickly if I am positive.”
In front of her, Gilles. Him, it is his son who had symptoms. But after passing the family to the self-test, it was he who was detected positive: “My self-test reacted very strongly even though I only had a simple cold. My son is really in pain and nothing, even afterwards. a PCR test, “says the amused man from Toulouse. Relaxed, he admits that he is not afraid of the result: “If it’s positive, we’ll get organized!”
