By ensuring dozens of millions of antigenic tests, the 17,000 offlines that make this service have significantly improved their margins since the beginning of the pandemic.
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The lull will have been brief. After the rush of the summer 2021 on the tests, then worn by the rebound of the epidemic in France due to the Variant Delta and the establishment of the sanitary pass, the queues have reappeared in front of the pharmacies since closely two months. The fault, partly, to the irruption of the Omicron variant, much more contagious than his cousin delta, and who has pushed millions of French to come and tripe the nostrils.
“At the moment, we are at 200 tests a day. It has dropped since the arrival of the autototes, but there is little time, we were up to 500 daily,” says Stéphanie Borgel, pharmacist. In the Saint-Paul district, in Paris. A tsunami. Between the 3rd and 9th of January, nearly twelve million CVIV-19 screenings – including about eight million antigenic tests – were conducted in France. Twice times more than at the peak of the previous wave in August 2021. And with more than 90% of antigenic tests to their assets, the hex’s offlicines have become real machines to track.
A hand that you had to take for pharmacists, not without any difficulties. Between the recruitment of additional staff to cope with the extra activity, the training of testers, and the administrative paperwork to charge the screenings, “we no longer have the time to make advice to the clientele”, regrets, some kilometers further, Florence Fuks behind his counter. To the point that in some pharmacies, the cards of drugs waiting to be put into departure accumulate. “It impacts the management of the pharmacy and our usual activities. We arrive earlier and we finish later,” says Georges Laquintinia, in that other pharmacy of the capital.
Since they have been allowed to “take” in October 2020, the affluence in pharmacies has skyrocketed. “At the moment, the offlicines command antigenic tests every other day”, observes Audrey Lecoq, Pharmazon Associate Manager, a purchasing plant that has more than 1,800 client pharmacies. It also notes a surge in demand on FFP2 masks since the beginning of the year.
No question of taxing “war prisoners”
The offlines benefit from their good reputation with customers, already used to come and find their prescriptions, and who feel confident. “The activity jumped by 30% to 40% on average,” says Gilles Bonnefond, spokesperson for the Unions of pharmacists of pharmacists (USPO). At the same time, the sales of medicines and health products off Covid-19, which had a fall in the first months of the pandemic, have more or less found their pre-crisis levels.
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