Queues in front of all pharmacies, protocols that invite you to test as hard as you can and total care for any minor or any vaccinated person… If the question of screening less continues to arise, the broad access to state-funded Covid-19 screening should cost “a little more than one and a half billion euros in January”, said Minister Delegate for Public Accounts Olivier Dussopt on Monday, well beyond estimates. In December 2021, with 28 million tests, France had spent “more than a billion” according to him.
PCR, antigen tests or self-tests, the rush on screenings
This is almost the number of antigenic tests – the fastest – that were carried out between March 2020 and August 1, 2021. Above all, it is the entire 1.6 billion euros provided for in the Security budget social for the whole of 2022 which is thus swallowed up. Because Omicron has accelerated everything. Started in December, the wave caused by the variant which appeared at the end of November in South Africa led to a rush in Covid-19 screenings, whether PCR tests, antigen tests or self-tests. “All the tests do not have the same cost, antigens are cheaper than PCR in terms of public finances”, also underlined the minister on Sud Radio, specifying: “we have always said that investments in the medical field , testing, vaccination, were good investments.”
Regarding the cost of vaccination last year, Olivier Dussopt said that the bill had represented “a little more than 5 billion euros”, and that it would cost “several billion euros in 2022”, a amount which might however be lower than that spent last year, he hinted.
The cost of the health bill “does not prevent us from finding a more sustainable public finance trajectory” estimated the minister, who affirmed the day before in the columns of the Journal du Dimanche that France’s public deficit would ultimately be “close to 7%” of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, while the government was still counting on 9.4 then 8.2% last year.
