Clinics with appointments often have none left several days in advance, while walk-in centres have seen queues lasting several hours.
Jean-Claude Schmit, director of the Health Directorate, told RTL that clinics are aware it can be difficult right now to get a test or a vaccine.
The cause is not a lack of capacity, but staff absences, he said: “We’ve had this problem every time there is a rise in infections. The labs can increase their testing capacity, but they don’t have enough staff. We are currently discussing how we can help the labs.”
One of the questions is which professions should be considered to take the swabs. Relaunching Large Scale Testing is a bigger enterprise requiring people from abroad and could not be done at such short notice, said Dr. Schmit.
But despite these problems, people shouldn’t worry that the isolation time will be extended. This is valid from the date of a rapid test or the onset of first symptoms, either way.
Everyone over 18 should now have received an invitation to get a booster. There is now high demand for the third dose, but wait times for an appointment are “reasonable”, says Dr. Schmit.
But there can even be delays at the vaccination centres, he says. This is often caused by people not sticking to their appointment slot, which means at times there are too many, and at times not enough people at the vaccination centres.
