Throughout the day, vans carrying bags full of Covid PCR test kits arrive at a laboratory in Vienna, which is presently analyzing 370,000 tests every day.
The Alpine nation of nine million people is a leader in Covid testing, having conducted over 144 million tests since the outbreak began.
However, with the latest Omicron wave sending cases into a tailspin, health professionals and legislators are debating whether broad testing funded by taxpayers is both necessary and efficient.
Since it opened just over a year ago on the huge grounds of a public hospital on Vienna’s outskirts, the Lifebrain laboratory, which accounts for a significant portion of the country’s testing, it has been fast expanding.
Viennese can register online, go to a drugstore, pick up a test kit, gargle at home, return the kit, and wait for an email with findings within 24 hours under the “Alles Gurgelt” (“Everyone Gargles”) system.
Lifebrain CEO Michael Havel told AFP, “It’s incredibly low-threshold.”
