Since the beginning of July, corona tests in Germany have cost three euros – unless you belong to a certain exceptional group. The German Association of Cities considers this strategy to be of little use and calls for a rethink in view of the increasing number of infections in autumn. There is also room for improvement elsewhere.
The German Association of Cities calls for a return to the completely free offer of corona citizen tests. “The current strategy with fewer free citizen tests raises more questions than it is useful,” said the association’s deputy general manager, Verena Göppert, to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND). Some test centers would have closed, others reduced opening hours. “The federal and state governments should therefore make citizen tests accessible again easily and free of charge – as early as autumn.”
Then a new wave of infections can be expected, said Göppert – and people should “be able to be tested more easily again”. This could bring “a more realistic overview of the infection process”. Since the beginning of July, the previously free citizen tests have only been available for certain groups without additional payment – such as children up to five years of age, pregnant women in the first three months or visitors to hospitals and nursing homes. Normally, a deductible of three euros has to be paid for a quick test.
The general manager of the Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg, told the newspapers that “there is still a need for improvement in the test regulation, especially when it comes to fraud controls”. He sees “very clearly the statutory health insurance physicians’ associations in the obligation to carry out random checks at the private test centers”. It is also necessary to improve communication between health authorities, associations of statutory health insurance physicians, the Robert Koch Institute and law enforcement authorities in order to be able to check suspected cases directly. This also applies to cases in which “for example, a test center stands out due to violations of hygiene rules”.
The CDU health politician Tino Sorge spoke out in favor of collecting more data from the test centers. “For example, it would make sense to ask anonymously and with consent which professions the tested people are pursuing,” he told the RND newspapers. “Then you could draw conclusions about the pandemic and determine which professional groups have a high risk of infection,” argued Sorge. “If many people who tested positive work in certain areas, such as gastronomy, the hotel industry or the clinical area, you would have more meaningful clues as to which professional groups are particularly affected.”