The Laboratoires Réunis teams can conduct 53,000 PCR tests per week as part of the large-scale screening strategy. This represents 9,500 tests on a weekday, and 5,000 on Saturdays. In addition to these, there are around 3,500 daily diagnostic tests carried out on prescription.
The second wave of the virus has placed immense pressure on testing stations, as the demand for tests has significantly risen. On Saturday, the Junglinster drive-in centre was forced to close early as it became overwhelmed with crowds, causing traffic to back up and resulted in police intervention. Dr Weber announced a new drive-in centre was expected to open in Strassen by the end of next week, which would serve patients with a GP prescription.
Video report in Luxembourgish:
A second new centre is planned to open on the Zitha Clinic site, which is currently closed; however, Dr Weber explained a pre-fabricated container structure would be erected over the coming days to accommodate people requiring tests. A new centre recently opened in Kirchberg near the hospital as well.
In addition to these, the laboratories in Hesperange, Mersch and Marnich had capacity to perform Covid tests, as the testing process has been simplified.
Although plans are afoot to increase testing capacity, the lab director said Laboratoires Réunis were approaching their limits in all areas. Staff shortages have taken their toll and although two new testing machines were on order, with a capacity of 2,500 tests per day, these were still not complete.
In addition to these obstacles, the labs are facing technical issues due to sending thousands of text messages a day, which risks blocking the network, explained Dr Weber.
