What is it like at a French COVID testing lab?
New testing centers for priority cases, meaning those with symptoms and those who have been prescribed to undergo the procedure, have opened this week in the Paris region.
The government is also look at other testing techniques to help alleviate the bottlenecks.
Biologist Arthur Clement said his lab is trying to adapt to the new levels of demand, "both by recruiting people to register people" and by taking samples.
On Friday (September 18), France's independent public health authority released a recommendation for the use of saliva tests for people with COVID-19 symptoms and those who cannot undergo nasal swabs.
Still, the council's notice indicated that saliva tests are less efficient than nasal tests in diagnosing the virus.
Some biologists put more hope into antigen tests to ease pressure on labs. They deliver results faster than PCR testing, but their reliability is still being examined.
