“Open your mouth, stick out your tongue,” the nurse asks me kindly.
This Friday evening, in the great hall which leads to the boxes of the artists present for this 36th Victoires de la Musique ceremony, a discreet stand is installed a few meters from the red carpet.
For the first time, a full-scale protocol with saliva tests was set up to test a sample of the population.
On a voluntary basis, each person brought to work on the event can check their state of health.
Since the start of the week, around 1,000 people (technicians, artists, musicians and extras) have taken part in the saliva test to verify that they were not positive for Covid-19.
“Not a single one was positive,” enthuses one of the representatives of the Innova Pharma laboratory which manages the operation.
The procedure is much less unpleasant than PCR tests and their huge rods that you have to stick into your nostrils.
This time the nurse slips a small cotton swab down my throat, scratching each tonsil to remove a sample of saliva.
The result only appears three minutes later.
Negative.
"The result is 96% reliable"
“Unlike the PCR test, this new process is above all a screening tool,” assures Xavier Guérin, director of the Innova Pharma laboratory.
It is a real hope for a resumption of concerts and large-scale events.
If you test negative, you can be confident for the next twelve hours.
And the result is 96% reliable.
"
While Benjamin Biolay and Vianney walk past the stand to join their boxes, Julie slips inside.
"I am one of the extras of the public tonight
(Editor's note: they are 200, paid for the occasion)
and I do not want to take any risk, assures the young thirty-something intermittent of the show.
Honestly, I have never done a laboratory PCR test since the start of the pandemic.
It doesn't make me feel at all comfortable going to a lab and waiting in a room with lots of other patients who have Covid.
There, it's super-fast, it doesn't hurt at all.
"
The nurse cuts her off and gives her the result… negative.
“I wasn't really scared, but at least now I'm reassured!
And what hope for the world of culture, it would still be a way to resume a normal life.
»Test concerts are also in preparation in Marseille, Paris and Brittany.