Covid: the new pacifier test Austria is testing to detect the virus in children

VIENNA (AFP) .- In an attempt to return to courses at all levels but without triggering the contagion curve of coronavirus, since the austrian government found a gentle way to test the little ones without realizing it and without hassle. How? With chupetines.

The country’s authorities they tested Covid-19 detection devices in the form of this treat in kindergartens, an alternative for children who fear nasal or throat tests.

The objective is to return to the presence in all areas, as much as possible, but without signaling a new wave. This is why these new tests, because with the reopening of schools, There are fears that the more contagious variants of the virus may spread, especially among children.

The Austrian province of Burgenland has already booked 35,000 of these screening tests. Parents in the area received a letter informing them that each child would receive three of these tests free of charge per week.

“It makes sense to have stricter controls in the field of education”, said Dominik Krotschek, father of a three-year-old boy. “There was no problem: today we did it again and it worked well,” he added.

Manuela Foedinger He runs the laboratory at the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph Hospital in Vienna and is the mind behind these lollipops. Before I had already created another easy to use method, Gargle, heavily implemented in Austria.

He is currently carrying out a study on five gardens with children from one to six years old to determine the reliability of these tests with a view to extending their use.

The new method is analyzed in the country at the same time as the government of the conservative chancellor Sebastian kurz faces a headache caused by the epidemic of a year ago in the Ischgl ski resort, in Austrian Tyrol, from where the coronavirus has spread to Europe.

The widow of a man who died of Covid-19 there, alone in a hospital room on the outskirts of Vienna, accuses Austrian authorities of negligence with other complainants for taking time to react when the first cases were detected.

Despite an initial alert on March 5, skiers continued to congregate on the cable cars and celebrate parties at resorts in the region. Eight days later, Kurz decrees a local lockdown (one of the first in Europe) and asks thousands of tourists to leave Ischgl, which victims and their families say sparked the disaster.

The country, which has a population of 8.9 million, has so far reported 622,110 positive, 22,331 actively infected, 589,534 recovered and 10,245 deaths.

THE NATION