“If it brings tears to your eyes, it’s because it was well done!”: Under the tall pines on the beach at Petit Nice, near the Dune du Pilat, a nurse introduced a swab into the nose of holidaymakers applying for free Covid-19 screening. And almost all of them crush a little tear.
Since Monday, faced with the resumption of the active circulation of the virus in Gironde, the Regional Health Agency of Nouvelle-Aquitaine has undertaken to “reach out” to the public, especially in places frequented by tourists, such as at Petit Nice , ocean beach of La Teste-de-Buch, at the entrance to the Arcachon basin.
Under the white tent in front of which a dozen people wait, all masked, the nurse Marion Lefay and two colleagues from the Arcachon hospital center – visor, mask, gloves, sterile gown and cap on the head – take about thirty people. per day since Monday.
“There are men, women, from 5 to 70 years old, usually in families. Most of them do not show symptoms, they come preventively, and they are not necessarily all tourists, there are also locals” , she says.
Like Fabrice, who came with his wife and children from a commune in the Bassin: “We wanted to go to the beach today, we chose Petit Nice because we could be tested there”. “I was a little apprehensive but it is quickly done”, he slips. “People come more easily here with pleasure than in a hospital”.
You just need to have your Vitale card and identity card with you. Results are sent within 24 to 48 hours by text message with a web link.
Not far from the highest dune in Europe, flown over by colorful paragliders, the queue is long to enter another screening tent, this one installed in front of Arcachon station, where around 100 samples are taken per day. .
Success is there: it was necessary to urgently deliver a larger refrigerator to store the samples waiting to be sent to the Bordeaux University Hospital for analysis.
– “Lots of brewing” –
“Hou là, it’s hair-raising”, confides a lady at the exit of the tent, with the visibly sensitive tear duct.
Having come from Rennes for a vacation, Sylvie wanted to reassure the elderly aunt she is coming to visit. “I wanted to take my precautions,” she said, “it reassures, it allows you to know if you are a healthy carrier.”
“It’s very fast, she explains, it goes deep in the nose but it’s nothing at all, I expected worse!”
Among the six all-in-white professionals who take up to four people at the same time, Philippe Veaux explains: “There is always a lot of brewing at Arcachon station and the French who do not go abroad this summer are So our tests and those of our colleagues at La Teste will very quickly give us an idea of what is happening in the field from a contamination point of view “.
“I hope that we will have good news”, slips Mr. Veaux, president of the association of general practitioners of Arcachon while the ARS considers the evolution of the Covid-19 “worrying” in New Aquitaine , where the Gironde was placed in “moderate vigilance”.
The health authorities fear indeed the mixtures of population induced by the summer period, especially in this year of “hexagonal” tourism.
“We have seen patients with text messages warning them that they had been in contact in Paris with people who tested positive, people who came from Mayenne and wanted to reassure their loved ones by being tested, families from England. . “, exclaims Philippe Veaux.
“Overall, we check that the behavior of the population is adapted to the situation,” said the doctor. “It is not because we are under the pines and by the sea that we are safe from contamination”.
–
© 2020 AFP. All rights of reproduction and representation reserved. All the information reproduced in this section (dispatches, photos, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights held by AFP. Consequently, none of this information may be reproduced, modified, redistributed, translated, commercially exploited or reused in any way without the prior written consent of AFP.
