Corona: Bavaria relies on test offensive

Carola Felchner is a freelance writer in the medical department and a certified training and nutrition advisor. She worked for various specialist magazines and online portals before becoming a freelance journalist in 2015. Before starting her internship, she studied translation and interpreting in Kempten and Munich.

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In the Free State, everyone should soon be able to be tested for the corona virus - regardless of symptoms. With this, the Free State wants to uncover more undetected cases and thus further promote the containment of the pandemic - for example in mine operations. But there are also critical voices.

Bavaria wants to carry out significantly more corona tests than before. They are to be "massively" expanded overall, as Health Minister Melanie Huml (CSU) said on Sunday in Munich. She announced a "corona test offensive".

Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn, on the other hand, is skeptical, although he generally welcomes mass tests. But he also points out that tests could weigh in on false certainty. The tests are always just a snapshot. In fact, an infected person can still test negative at an early stage.

Priority for people with symptoms

"One of the cornerstones of our Bavarian test concept is that all people who want to be tested for an infection for SARS-CoV-2 should be certain of whether they have become infected," emphasized Huml.

"All citizens of Bavaria are therefore promptly offered to be tested by a resident contract doctor without symptoms." However, people with symptoms who are suspected of having Covid 19 disease should have priority.

Free State pays the costs

"The Free State bears the costs for the medical service (smear) as well as for the laboratory costs," said the Ministry of Health in Munich at the request of the German Press Agency on Sunday.

However, if there is a claim to reimbursement of costs by another body such as a health insurance company, "this service should be used as a priority".

Patient advocates welcome the plans

"These tests are useful because we have no other instrument to quickly and quickly identify a chain of infection," said Eugen Byrsch from the German Foundation for Patient Protection. "With preventive tests, we have the opportunity to identify dangerous situations." But tests could not replace the distance rules and mouth and nose protection, he emphasized.

It is also unclear how the tests are to be carried out. General practitioners could be overwhelmed by this, according to Byrsch. Above all, mass tests in nursing homes and homes for the disabled, which are particularly important, cannot be carried out. "We have to get mobile teams going. Especially where the infection process meets a high-risk group, there must be no discussions," said the foundation's board of directors to the dpa.

Meat sector in the test focus

One focus of the tests will be on slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. The aim is "to prevent major outbreaks like in Gütersloh," said the health minister.

In 33 other selected meat plants, including 9 slaughterhouses, 12 cutting plants and 12 plants that produce meat or sausage products, the employees are to be tested in rows. "We also want to find out whether the high physical strain or work in unfavorable climatic conditions are possible further risk factors for a corona infection," said Huml.

In the first comprehensive corona series tests of employees at 51 slaughterhouses in Bavaria, a total of 110 people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, according to the ministry.

Tests also in homes, schools and daycare centers

"The results show that the serial tests were a step in the right direction," said Huml. "This made it possible to discover unrecognized sick people and thus prevent the development of chains of infection."

Among the 33 companies that are now to be tested are nine slaughterhouses where the employees had already been tested in the first wave of tests.

The test results would have helped prevent a regional lockdown, stressed Huml. That is why the tests in nursing homes and retirement homes, in hospitals and among teachers and educators are to be expanded.

Hamburg and Saxony-Anhalt have already announced that they will not follow the example. The Robert Koch Institute does not consider untargeted tests to be useful, said a Hamburg Senate spokesman.

(caf / dpa)

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