In Bremen, a drive-in station made it possible to be tested for Corona in the car – without chopsticks.
- Bremen: Corona test in the car.
- Gargle instead of swabbing with chopsticks.
- Chance for Osterwiese and Freimarkt?
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Bremen – No gagging, no chopsticks, just gargle with four milliliters of saline solution: In Bremen’s Überseestadt, the Hamburg company “Corona Freepass” has been offering PCR tests for Corona in a drive-in since Monday. The customers stay in the car. Within 24 hours, the result is sent via SMS with laboratory results to be printed out in German and English on the smartphone.
Antoni from Leer drives his car from the check-in container to one of two other stations where the test is handed out. A man behind a pane of glass speaks to him through a loudspeaker. Everything is going quickly. Antoni shows the assigned QR code on the mobile phone display, his ID, then the QR code again. He got a cup with the saline solution. The man in the container says: “Gargle for 20 seconds. I’ll keep count. ”After gargling, the saline solution has to be returned to the cup. Antoni locks it and puts it back.
On the way to Spain with the family
He has already done about 20 corona tests. He plans to fly to Spain on Wednesday to visit his family. For this he needs a corona test, which can be a maximum of 72 hours old. He praises that the gargle test is not uncomfortable. Another possibility to get tested for Covid-19 even faster in Bremen is offered to him and others by the private “Covid Center”, where the results are available after 20 minutes.
Franziska Kirsch from “Corona Freepass” came from Hamburg to train the Bremen team at the drive-in. The vials with the samples would be picked up in the evening and taken to Stendal in Saxony-Anhalt for analysis. The 37-year-old, who worked in the catering industry for 20 years, describes the test as a hope for the industry. The event industry can certainly also hope. The cooperation partner of “Corona Freepass” in Bremen, Henning von Freeden (62), is, among other things, the operator of the escape room “The Key” in Überseestadt. He is also a member of the Bremen gastro community. In a next step, the samples could be evaluated on site, he says. “We are working on shortening the time between the test and the event. If you can test safely and with high quality almost directly before the event, we have achieved our goal. “
Evaluation planned on site
The result might be available after an hour. In von Freeden’s opinion, quick tests could also be an opportunity for the Freimarkt or the Osterwiese. An on-site evaluation would reduce logistics costs. In the so-called “pooling process”, several samples would be examined together. If an infection is found, the samples are then tested individually. That already keeps the price low.
“Freepass” has been testing people on Hamburg’s Spielbudenplatz since December. In the meantime there should have already been a good 30,000 tests. “Corona Freepass” is a company owned by Axel Strehlitz, who, according to the company, operates around a dozen entertainment companies and is managing partner of the Udo Lindenberg Museum “Panik City”, as well as the IT entrepreneur Heiko Fuchs. Fuchs is one of the fathers of the computer program “Hamburg Pandemic Manager”, used by the Hamburg health authorities to record corona infections.
Corona test for just under 35 euros
To take part in the test, you can register at www.bremen.coronafreepass.de required. Cost: 34.95 euros. Payment is currently made by credit card. Address: Cuxhavener Straße 7. Opening times of the drive-in: Monday to Saturday from 1pm to 6pm.
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