This is one of the signs that the health crisis occupies the minds of the French less.
While a large majority of them have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and the epidemic waves are no longer as powerful as the first, the number of French people having gone to be tested before this Christmas 2022 - a period conducive to reunions with family - has been significantly reduced compared to last year.
According to data from “Drees” which, since October 2020, has been tracking PCR and antigen tests carried out weekly in France, only 1,561,000 were carried out between December 19 and 25.
A relative drop compared to the previous week - 1,744,700 tests - but marked compared to 2021. During this same Christmas week, 6,897,892 tests had been carried out, i.e. 4.5 times more.
It should be remembered that the context at the time was very different: the wave of the Omicron variant swamped the country, raising fears that family reunions were only a multiplication of clusters.
And that the contaminations do not explode at the beginning of January.
Faced with the weariness of the French, the drop in the number of tests suffered a real drop this year, all age groups combined.
The proportion is even higher for those under 16, with a 34% drop between Christmas week and the week preceding it.
Older people only saw their tests decrease by 7 to 9%.
It should also be noted that saliva tests have seen a 25% decrease.
72.2% of these were carried out on children.
We will have to wait until the first week of 2023 to find out if New Year's Eve on December 31 will have had an effect on the number of tests carried out these days.