Nick Hækkerup points out that the test capacity is no longer fully utilized because many work at home.
If more are tested, it could help detect the more contagious British mutation, B117, it sounds.
It has recently spread in Denmark. As of Wednesday, 208 cases of the mutation had been found by random sampling.
4 days ago, the total number of 134 samples found was B117.
In the last week of 2020, the British mutation was found in 2.4 percent of the positive corona samples.
That number has risen to 3.6 percent in the first week of the new year.
– The total contact number is between 0.85 and 0.9 seen across the country. But if you look only at the contact number for the variant B117, it is 1.2 percent. Thus, the infection increases with B117, says Henrik Ullum, director of the Statens Serum Institut, at the press conference.
This week, a new test method, delta-pcr, is introduced in the public test centers as well. It can screen all positive samples for the British mutation and do so faster than before.
On Wednesday, there were responses from around 83,000 corona samples, but there is capacity to test over 110,000 a day in the public test centers.
With private providers, there is capacity to test 100,000 a day with lightning tests, but the capacity is not used here either.
On Tuesday, just over 15,000 were tested with a lightning test.
At the press conference, the restrictions were also further extended by three weeks. They are now valid until 7 February.
Travel restrictions have also been extended by a further three weeks. This applies to both entry restrictions and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ travel guidelines, which will continue to discourage all travel.
Source: The Nordic Page