PCR test entitlement in future only after a positive rapid test
Created: 2022-02-09 17:43
A red warning message on the Corona app is no longer enough.
© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
Up to now it was possible to get a free PCR test with a red Corona app warning message.
That should change now.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach would like to use these tests more specifically in the future.
Berlin - In view of the high number of corona infections, the use of more precise PCR laboratory tests should be concentrated more in the future.
The basic right to this should remain - but for the time being, PCR tests should only be carried out after a positive antigen rapid test.
"At the peak of the pandemic, we use PCR tests in a more targeted manner," said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to the editorial network Germany (RND).
A red warning message on the Corona app is no longer enough.
According to the ministry, a claim for a PCR test must first be clarified with a rapid test.
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"Anyone who needs certainty about an infection will get it," emphasized Lauterbach at the same time.
The regulations emerge from a new draft for an amended test regulation, which the RND first reported on.
It is also available to the German Press Agency.
In the future, rapid tests should be sufficient to "test oneself" prematurely from isolation as an infected person or from quarantine as a contact person of infected persons.
The test strategy should also ensure that risk patients and people in facilities such as nursing homes, practices, clinics and emergency services are given priority when evaluating PCR tests.
But they too should first do a positive antigen rapid test.
dpa