Following a first session at the City Concorde shopping centre on Wednesday, the next stop for the large scale testing mobile unit is Auchan Kirchberg on Friday 9 July, the ministry of health announced.

"Other stops in shopping centres are still being planned, as well as visits planned in other places", the ministry says.

The service is open, without appointment, to both residents and border residents, as long as they have a national registration number.

Travellers welcome again

Since 20 June, access to the large scale testing facilities has been re-established on a voluntary basis, and is no longer reserved solely for those with an invitation. This means that people wishing to travel or carry out an activity requiring CovidCheck can now get free-of-charge proof that they are not infected.

If this move is good news for holiday makers,  who were required to pay about sixty euros to be tested during the Easter holidays, for example,  it has not met with the same approval by some private operators such as Bionext Lab, whose boss and founder last month decried what he called "unfair competition”.

Ecolog closes its station at City Concorde

Testing was also done previously at some shopping centres like City Concorde, but for a fee of 12 to 95 euros, depending on the package. "The station set up with Ecolog will be closed from 19 July, as there is no longer any obligation to have a negative test to go to restaurants, and the ministry is now offering free PCR tests without invitation," City Concorde management explained.

Launched in May 2020, Luxembourg’s large-scale testing programme is currently in its third phase. It is planned to run until mid-July, with a possible extension until mid-September 2021. If it is extended, the cost of the programme will have exceeded €64 million.

Between 28 June and 4 July, 35,372 PCR tests were carried out in Luxembourg on the resident population, of which 23,200 were carried out at large scale testing facilities.