Kiosks and health centers are not up to the demand for COVID testing. This has also caused saturation in the pharmacies that carry them out.
Staff at these locations work doing up to 40 tests in a single shift, half of which are positive.
In the afternoon in a pharmacy San Pablo, in the mayor’s office Azcapotzalco, they have done 30 tests, of those 15 gave positive results and everything was complicated.
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Every time the test confirms a case of COVID, the clinic, located in the Azcapotzalco city hall in Mexico City, must be sanitized. These days, people start lining up from 6 in the morning, to reach a test in the morning shift, when they are usually between 25 and 30. In the afternoon they do a little more, between 30 and 40.
This afternoon there were so many positive cases in this office that a deeper cleaning was required and testing stopped for nearly an hour, between 7 and 8 at night. About ten people lined up outside the place, five had a card, the others no longer reached.
“It is true that they gave us the file and warned us that maybe not everyone was going to reach service, because this one ends at 8 at night and they were going to have to stop everything for almost an hour to clean up thoroughly. Just at 8 o’m they resumed the tests and attended to four more people than we had. Only I was missing. At work they are asking me for the test because there was a positive case in the area where I am and now I will have to come back tomorrow and lose more time,” says the woman, who also complains that the office staff is already very moody and the treatment is rough.
Photo: Andrea Vega
When all those who no longer reached service leave, the doctor and nurse say that they are not bad, but the work is a lot.
This Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported 21,569 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a single day, the highest number in this third wave and that is already close to the record of daily confirmed cases in the entire epidemic in Mexico, that of January 21, when 22,339 were counted.
The doctor of the pharmacy San Pablo says that on Tuesday they did 43 tests, about 20 were positive. On Wednesday there were 30, 15 positive. “Of course we work past 8 pm every day and it’s very heavy. People are very insistent. It is also that they go from one side to the other looking for evidence because everywhere it is at the top, that we also understand, “he says as he takes off his cover, the hat, the googles and the stress begins to give him a respite.
She says she already caught COVID in May. A few weeks ago he went back to work and just a few days ago he was able to get vaccinated. Staff at neighborhood clinics and pharmacies had to wait to get vaccinated because of age. They were not considered a priority even though they are at high risk, because they are, as you can see these days, the first contact for consultations and tests.
As of August 2, 2021, 251,237 health personnel had tested positive for the SARS-CoV2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and 4,127 had died from this disease. Cases of infected health workers have increased in recent weeks. In epidemiological week 19 (from 9 to 15 May) there were 338 positive cases, in week 30 (from 25 to 31 July) 596 were reported.
To put the shoulder
Pharmacy offices, especially where tests are done because not all of them do, exhibit long lines these days, due to the saturation in the kiosks and health centers of Mexico City. Adrian Hernandez went on Monday to the kiosk that is in Ethiopia. He arrived at 11 a.m. and was given the 200th card.
“I went there in May to get tested and there were no people. Now there was so much that I better leave because I figured I wasn’t going to get tested. He had also gone to the module that is in the Benito Juarez delegation. I arrived there at 9 in the morning and there were already like 200 people. It was a huge snake in line and with a lot of disorder, because they have few staff organizing. There were only about three people in green vests (the one worn by cdmx government personnel).”
Adrian, who has been returning from a work trip to several countries and wanted to confirm that he does not have COVID before seeing his family, opted better to look for a test in a private laboratory, where he found availability as soon as the closing time on Monday.
A doctor who works in a health center in the CDMX tells Animal Politico that up to 150 tests are being done per day, of which between 25 and 35 come out positive. In May if they did mysbut 150 in a day, were positive between 5 and 15, he says.
Most of the positives, the doctor says, are under the age of 50, who have no vaccine or do not have the complete schedule. The doctor in the office of the San Pablo chain says the same thing. “Many people under the age of 40 arrive, some were infected by returning to work, to face-to-face activities, but they are also infected by going on vacation or partying. A boy came to get tested and came with his granny. She had gone to celebrate a friend’s birthday and then worried about seeing if she wasn’t sick and if she hadn’t infected grandma. The good thing is that it came out negative.”
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In another office of the San Pablo pharmacy, but this one in Satélite, in Naucalpan, State of Mexico, a treinteañero could not celebrate the same fate. At noon this Wednesday the place is with a line of about 20 people. The doctor comes out with five papers in hand. He starts shouting names and the alluded to approach.
Of the five, one is positive, is 30 years old and confesses that he trusted himself, that he has walked in meetings and restaurants with his friends. You have mild symptoms. He says he will go to another doctor, where there are fewer people, and abide by what he tells him.
A 20-year-old woman has also tested positive for the test she has just been given in the office of the San Pablo pharmacy on the Los Misterios causeway in Mexico City, where at 5 p.m. there are about 60 people lining up, they do not obstruct the sidewalk or are so visible, because they have been accommodated by the stairs and in the parking lot.
Those who wait are between 18 and 50 years old, no children or teenagers are seen and if anything there are a couple of people in their 60s. Some do have symptoms, others have been asked for the test at work either to return to face-to-face activities or because in the area where they work someone tested positive.
The process in this office is the same, every time a case is confirmed you have to sanitize the place and the line stops. Another young woman says she arrived around 12 and a half and still has about ten people ahead of her.
To the new ones who are arriving with the intention of training, the same people tell them to think carefully if they are going to stay, because the wait is long and there is no guarantee that they will reach a test. Many count the number of people and leave. Others play it and form. Thus comes the night outside these clinics, with people who lose or win the task of getting a doctor, sco sconed by the government, to scrape his throat and pass the sentence.
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