MP Mars di Bartolomeo from the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP), the president of the Parliamentary Commission on Health, explained on Tuesday that while no one was opposing the third phase, a majority of MPs agrees that it will only work if enough people participate. About one third of those who received invitations during the first two phases ended up participating in the testing efforts.
According to MP Marc Baum from the Left Party (Déi Lénk), an assessment should be made to find out the exact reasons why some people have not taken up their invitations. Baum added that his party also thinks the government should adapt its testing strategy, as it has been demonstrated that the current strategy, which mainly relies on contact tracing to break up infection chains, struggles to keep up when the number of infections rises quickly and significantly.
The government has recently confirmed that the capacities of the tracing teams have in fact been increased. Currently, they are able to trace back up to 400 new cases per day.
MPs also discussed rapid tests, a topic which still presents a number of unanswered questions, according to Bartolomeo.
Luxembourg currently has a stock of around one million rapid tests. While shortages are thus not a problem, there are still many uncertainties when it comes to how and where they should be used. This is mainly due to the large majority of Luxembourg’s rapid tests being antigen tests, which still need to be carried out by a medical professional. Selling them in pharmacies would require people to get tested there as well, which is not always possible, and the government also wants to avoid turning pharmacies into new hotspots. Bartolomeo also stressed that people need to be informed that rapid tests might create a false sense of security. They are only effective if used alongside social distancing and large-scale testing, Bartolomeo explained.
