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From: TT
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Photo: Johan Nilsson / TT
The Stockholm region will resume home testing for covid-19 on November 5. Stock Photography.
As of Thursday, it will again be possible to request tests at home for covid-19 in Stockholm, with certain new conditions.
– Once may be enough, so that sampling can be offered to as many as possible, says Elda Sparrelid from the Stockholm Region.
The message comes a few days after the opportunity to order was stopped because the load on the Karolinska University Laboratory was too high. But now the laboratory has more capacity.
In relation to resuming testing, new priorities are introduced to ensure testing primarily ends up with those who need it most. Among other things, a limit is introduced for the number of home tests that can be requested per day and per person.
“There is no indication”
– We have seen that there are people who ask for a maximum of what can be assigned to them, that is, four samples in a row in a few days. There is no medical indication to get tested that many times, so just one time may be enough to allow as many as possible to be sampled, says Elda Sparrelid, chief physician, Health and Medical Care Administration, Region of Stockholm, to TT.
The region will monitor the number of orders placed daily so there are no queues. If capacity is exceeded, the ability to request at-home testing will be temporarily closed and then reopened the next day.
Positive minority
Sparrelid says the need for sampling does not depend on how many samples are positive, but on how many people in society have respiratory infections. During this time of year and in winter, the number of people who have a cold even without covid-19 increases.
– Although the proportion of positive tests has increased markedly, a minority of the tests carried out remain positive. People have other infections right now as well, and I don’t think there are many people who ask for samples without having symptoms, so it’s above all other colds.
Sampling is an important tool in the work of limiting the spread of infection and being able to estimate the need for care. But tracking infections is not the solution on its own, it is ultimately people’s behavior that is crucial to stopping the spread, according to Elda Sparrelid.
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