‘It is difficult to publish all negative findings in a timely manner’, Harald Michels, head of the Trier and Trier-Saarburg health office, told the German Press Agency (DPA/ZDF) on Saturday.
In Rhineland-Palatinate (Pfalz), delays in the reporting of results from Corona tests are causing concern.
Trier, Luxembourg’s neighboring German city, is just one of these locations.
The blame for the lack of a swift result notification is due to the fact that everything is done with paper records.
However, all positive cases were immediately informed, according to Michels; “we are very close to the testers and the public,” he said. “It is not the case here as it is in Bavaria. We just can’t get the negative findings out in a timely manner.”
There had previously been drastic delays in the Bavaria region. As of Wednesday, 44,000 of those returning from trips abroad were still waiting for their results after taking tests at facilities set up on the motorways there. Several hundred people who were found to be confirmed as carrying COVID-19.
In Trier, staff had already been increased at the Markusberg testing centre on Saturday, as greater traffic was predicted. “Today we have at least eight people, and on Monday we aim to have even more. Then these results can be dealt with more quickly.”
The high volume of tests is one factor, the method in which the results are being recorded is another.
“It’s not because of our love of paper, it’s simply because of the structure: that we still use this method,” Michels emphasized. It is not “up to us as a health authority, but the federal government is responsible for the direction taken. There is an urgent need for a German electronic reporting and information system to get it this right.”
Michels was critical of the decision to roll out mobile centres without first ironing out the metholodgy behind the practice. “It would have been better to create the structures that can do this at a political level before you hit the ground,” Michels said citing that in Luxembourg, for example, people work electronically.
As of Friday evening (14 August), 4,545 tests had been carried out at the station on a the A1 rest area near Trier.
As of midday on Friday, there were five positive cases. “What has definitely not happened here is that the positives are not informed,” Michels underlined.
It is thought that only about 20 percent of the cases processed in the Trier health office actually come from the area. Michels told ZDF, “many returning Spanish holidaymakers would cross the border from Luxembourg”.
