The third large-scale testing phase could last until September depending on how the pandemic evolves  Matic Zorman

The third large-scale testing phase could last until September depending on how the pandemic evolves  Matic Zorman

Health minister Paulette Lenert (LSAP) on Monday said the government wanted to continue pursuing the wide-spread testing of Luxembourg’s population and cross-border workers, but the project comes at a price.

Between March and July, the health minister expects to need €42,825,510 for PCR and antibody tests, adding another €21,412,755 if the status of the pandemic should require testing to continue until September 2021.

In the second phase of testing between mid-September 2020 and mid-January this year, large-scale testing helped diagnose 9,211 coronavirus infections, the health ministry said in documents submitted to lawmakers.

Researchers in December said that the number of infections would have been 39% higher without large-scale testing last year.

It issued more than 2.1m invitations to residents and cross-border workers, with around one-third making an appointment.

Antibody tests that started in November 2020 found that out of 4,882 people tested, 348 (around 7%) showed coronavirus antibodies. As of 1 February, around 8% of Luxembourg’s population had contracted Sars-CoV-2, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.  

The second phase of testing came with a price tag of €60.7m. The first phase of large-scale testing from May to July 2020 cost €39.5m.

The third phase of large-scale testing will increase availability of mobile testing stations, for example at schools and nursing homes. Between September and January, mobile testing units carried out 186 operations with 16,501 tests.

It will also test people who have already received the vaccine to gather data on their immunity and on whether someone who is vaccinated can nevertheless pass the coronavirus on to others, a question not yet solved by research.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recently recommended countries step up testing capacity to keep the spread of more contagious coronavirus mutations in check by identifying and breaking infection chains early.

Luxembourg’s covid-19 tasks force in its latest report warned of a rebound of the pandemic in the grand duchy because of the presence of the UK variant, urging the public to get tested when invited to the large-scale testing programme and to follow government guidelines and covid-19 laws.