Bioscientia: Analysis of PCR tests – how a large laboratory works at the limit (video)

The laboratory service provider Bioscientia in Ingelheim has a lot to do these days. With the high number of infections in the beginning of winter, the laboratory is working to the limit. Although the capacities have doubled compared to the previous year, according to the managing director and chief doctor, Oliver Harzer, the number of PCR tests required is simply very high. And now there is also the new Omikron variant. O-TON OLIVER HARZER, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND HEAD DOCTOR OF BIOSCIENTIA: “Well, in the meantime we have actually found Omikron, the variant, up to now around ten cases that we have also reported. And we have, so to speak, permanently Yes, this background screening, this sentinel screening of 5 percent of the positive samples that we have been doing since December last year, and from that you can judge from the many thousands of positive ones that we are seeing at the moment, that you also see every day In the RKI reports you can see that the proportion is of course still very low overall. But you can expect that it will take a steep increase right now, as we have probably also seen at Delta. I would at least expect that. ” With more than 70,000 new infections per week, five percent of the positive samples are fully genome-sequenced. At Delta, the employees were able to understand the exponential increase exactly. They expect a similar development for Omikron, especially since the PCR test is easy to use with this variant. Harzer also emphasized on Thursday in Ingelheim that the high number of infections can only be countered with a high vaccination rate. O-TON OLIVER HARZER, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND HEAD DOCTOR OF BIOSCIENTIA: “Well, the numbers are very high at the moment and we can only get the whole thing solved if we simply achieve a higher vaccination rate. That is so. Then we break the chains of infection and as There is also a positive side effect that if these chains of infection are broken, if the pool of people in which the virus can multiply, if the pool gets smaller, then we also have less pool for the virus to mutate then we have to do with fewer mutations. So the vaccination has a protective function in many ways, one for the individual, but also for the whole. Therefore you people, get vaccinated, it helps. And it’s good for us. It is good for all of us and all. All information, all data rationally speaks in favor of doing this. ” And that is exactly the declared aim of the new federal government. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, SPD, only stressed on Wednesday when he took up his duties that the current strategy provides for around 30 million vaccinations to be targeted by the end of the year. However, the Robert Koch Institute reported on Thursday that only around 70 percent of the German population had been fully vaccinated.