The momentum observed for a month and a half is continuing.
According to data from Drees, attached to the Ministry of Health, the demand for Covid-19 screening tests continued to weaken last week.
Over seven days, only 1.58 million samples were counted, 7% less than the previous week and 61% less than a month and a half earlier, during the previous peak.
It is also the lowest figure since December 2020.
To discover
Taxes 2022: all about your tax return
Read alsoWhere can we travel?
Our map of open countries and restrictions for French tourists
The decline in demand is observed in all age groups, except among the youngest.
Saliva tests have multiplied within this population, explaining this reversal of the trend visible for several weeks.
The slowdown can also be seen in the daily figures: last week, no day recorded more than 340,000 tests, and the average was more around 225,000 samples over 24 hours.
Post-Omicron normalization
While France abandoned almost all of its health restrictions, including the mask in public transport, on Monday, the situation in laboratories and pharmacies therefore seems to be normalizing.
The impressive peak in demand generated by the Omicron variant, in mid-January 2022, seems far away: at the time ten million additional tests were carried out each week, compared to the current level, by way of comparison.
However, the slowdown is less marked than in previous weeks, suggesting that France is gradually heading towards a plateau.
The economic situation also plays a role: on the one hand, contaminations are less and less numerous and the pressure is easing.
In mid-May, the rolling average over seven days was around 31,800 cases detected each day, the lowest since the end of November 2021. On the other hand, departures on vacation could revive the demand for tests among French people wishing to go to abroad or fly.
For their part, some experts fear that the vertiginous drop in the number of samples will distort the monitoring of the epidemic, weakening the tricolor system against Covid-19.
In total, since mid-June 2020, France will have recorded nearly 296.5 million tests, of which a significant part - 92.2 million, or 31% - in 2022. The Omicron wave then caused a rush for swabs , sometimes pushing more than two million French people to be tested every day, in January.
Enough to put the whole industry under tension.
