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Saturday 3 October 2020
A new national testing strategy should take effect in mid-October. A draft shows that Health Minister Spahn is planning massive tests in nursing homes and nursing homes, but also in medical facilities. For this, rapid tests will be used.
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn is considering comprehensive corona tests in nursing homes and nursing homes. This stems from his ministry’s draft for a national test strategy, which goes into effect on October 15. Mass testing in homes is intended to better protect staff, visitors and residents from the virus.
The 23-page draft sets out similar regulations for hospitals, ambulatory surgical facilities, medical and dental practices, dialysis facilities, practices for human medical health professions, and ambulatory care services, as the “Spiegel” cites.
If a coronavirus infection is found in such facilities, everyone who has been there in the previous 10 days should be entitled to a test. The goal is to better protect people who are particularly at risk, according to the draft.
According to plans, nursing homes should, for example, have a monthly fee for so-called rapid antigen tests. Up to 50 tests per resident are planned. A facility with 80 residents could use up to 4,000 tests per month to repeatedly test visitors, staff and residents.
Rapid tests must be paid for through the health fund, from which health insurers receive their funds. The ministry estimates this to be in the mid-triple-digit million range, depending on the development of the testing process. Nursing homes and retirement homes in Germany were exposed to the coronavirus for a long time without protection. In individual facilities, large numbers of older people were infected over and over again.
Strong criticism of the FDP
According to the draft, the contact persons of infected persons should also be entitled to a corona test in the future, even if they themselves have no symptoms. The right applies to people who live in the same household as an infected person. It also applies to other contact persons who have been in contact with an infected person “particularly in conversational situations for at least 15 minutes without interruption” or who have had “direct contact with bodily fluids,” according to the draft.
The aim of the new strategy is “not only more comprehensively than before, but also easier to test particular groups of people who do not have symptoms of the presence of an infection”, but for whom an infection appears to be “obvious” , according to the draft. .
The FDP accused Minister Spahn of presenting his new test strategy too late. For a strategy in the fields of medicine, police, schools, kindergartens and universities, it is “five past twelve,” said the group’s vice president, Michael Theurer. “Now that Federal Minister of Health Spahn has delivered the national testing strategy too late, he now has to come up with a compelling holistic concept with much more urgency.”
