The antigen test has a great promise: deliver a result within 15 minutes of the sample.
At least in theory.
In recent days, scores of residents have been surprised to have to wait several hours to find out if they are negative or positive.
For PCR tests, the result of which is usually known within a few hours, the waiting time has also increased.
"We had a median delay of 10-12h a month ago, and here we are at 18-20h," says a laboratory manager.
The concerns seem to be resolved this Friday, at least for now.
Here's what you need to know.
What is the context?
With the surge in contamination due to the Omicron variant, the number of tests, positive cases but especially contact cases has exploded.
1.1 million tests are performed each day (on average), and 200,000 people are positive.
Monday, we reached the mark of 2 million tests with more than 400,000 positives.
This leads to hundreds of thousands of contact cases, invited to immediately pass a swab in the nose.
In short, the system is overheating, as it had already happened before Christmas.
Where does the problem comes from ?
The SI-DEP interface, which allows pharmacists and laboratories to enter test results, has been difficult to access at several times in recent days, indicate several professionals in the sector. Suddenly, impossible for them to connect. "We had regular crashes, with a 404 error displayed on the page," said Philippe Besset, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France (FSPF).
Contacted, the General Directorate of Health (DGS) blames “too large seizures in a very short time”.
"The number of tests carried out per day does not pose a problem (capacity of 3 million), but it is the concentration on a given range which causes these incidents", add the authorities.
In other words, it would be especially at peak times, such as at the end of the day, that the bugs are the most recurring.
Yesterday was horrible.
I do not understand that nobody reacts.
We are already more able to test everyone.
We have a positive case number which is false.
Wednesday I had 7 positives which I could not declare because SIDEP HS.
So change the testing policy!
- Thomas Petit 💉💉💉 (@ToaPei) January 7, 2022
The DGS also says it faces attempted computer attacks, via “unauthorized robots or attempted denial of service attacks”.
This leads to malfunctions lasting "less than 5 minutes (anti-DDOS action - Denial of service attack) and 2 hours (robots to be blocked via their IP addresses and base to be restarted)".
What has been done to resolve it?
To "absorb" the number of results entered by pharmacists and laboratories, and particularly during peaks of activity, it was decided to increase the capacity from 3 to 12 million tests per day.
"The new machines are being installed and configured" and "the capacity has already been doubled last night," said the DGS this Friday morning.
"We received a message around 5:30 am this morning to tell us that the problems had been repaired and that they were going to finish putting everything in place today", confirms the president of the union of biologists, François Blanchecotte, who did not observe new incident for the moment.
Is there an impact on the number of positive cases reported each day?
There are two channels for counting the number of daily positive cases.
The first, by date of sampling, corresponds to the number of people tested positive on that day.
It is communicated on D + 3, until the vast majority of the results are known.
Thursday evening, we learned that 410,000 people had tested positive Monday, unheard of in the past.
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Public Health France also publishes, every evening, the number of new positive cases reported in 24 hours.
It corresponds to the difference between the total for the day and that of the day before.
There were 271,686 Tuesdays, 332,252 Wednesdays and 261,481 Thursdays.
But these numbers are actually underestimated, because things get stuck in the circuit.
"The volume of tests carried out is very, very important, so there may be a traffic jam with tests that arrive late", indicates Yann Le Strat, head of the data division of Public Health France.
“But no test is lost,” he assures us.
It is therefore to be expected, as has happened in the past, to "catch up" after a certain time.
The daily count will then be "inflated" because it will include positive tests taken several days previously.