“The daughter doesn’t really want to. She’s a little scared. She did it at school and found it a little uncomfortable,” says Jutta Pils. Together with her husband André, son Steffen and daughter Carolin, she makes a trip to a corona test center in Soest, a 50,000-inhabitant city in North Rhine-Westphalia east of the industrial region Ruhr area, on Easter Sunday. The Pils family would like to be tested “because we would like to celebrate this afternoon with our family, tomorrow with the other family, and want to feel a little more secure”. The family of four is not alone with this wish.
The Pils family before the corona test
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The test center recorded an exponential increase in the number of people willing to test. “Two months ago, when we were just starting our test center, there were five or six people who wanted to have a quick test done,” recalls Paul Grüneberg, who is responsible for IT at the test center, among other things all “denotes. In the meantime, over 3,500 people have booked test appointments over the whole of Easter.
The test boom
Paul Grüneberg: manager and student
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When Paul Grüneberg speaks, one could easily get the impression that he is a department head of a large company. They have “insanely increased staff” and they are concerned that the high level of demand for appointments via the website will “endanger the basic stability of the system”. Paul Grüneberg is 16 years old and a student – and currently also a manager. The test center is housed in the clubhouse of the local boy scouts.
The managing director of the test center is Ralf Wischnewski. He is actually a professional firefighter, emergency chaplain, paramedic and specialist lecturer in emergency medicine. It says so on his website.
Ralf Wischnewski, operator of several test centers in Soest and the region
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He also trains young people in this area and thus got to know Paul Grüneberg, with whom he runs the Corona test center Soest today. And not only that. He runs three other test centers in the region, looks after kindergartens and schools and: “We also look after other facilities, such as companies, that come to us that are not covered by the citizens’ test, which we then pay for also test the companies on site. ”
They have just bought a tent so that they can test a lot of people on the move. “We have created 35 jobs, almost half of them full-time,” adds Ralf Wischnewski. It seems like people are really excited about testing right now. But that is also definitely what politicians want. As long as not enough people can be vaccinated, they should at least be able to have regular tests. Everyone can be tested for free once a week. In this case, the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia pays the 18 euros that are estimated per test.
The testing is running – the vaccination is stalling
Not pleasant, but bearable: Steffen Pils during the test
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Obviously, not everyone is crazy about testing. Carolin is the only one in the Pils family who does not want to be tested. Her brother Steffen grimaces and lets the procedure in which the chopstick is pushed deep into his nose calmly endure. Carolin doesn’t really feel like it. But then the employees of the test center conjure up a sucking test. This also convinces Carolin.
After a few minutes, the Pils family is tested – and back outside. This is how it is supposed to be. Finally, the appointments are assigned every five minutes.
“If the vaccination would finally go ahead, I would prefer it,” says Michael Schnigge as he leaves the test center. The self-employed motor vehicle expert is 61 years old and belongs to the group of over 60-year-olds who have been able to register for a vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine since Saturday – at least in theory. “That was a disaster here in Soest yesterday,” says Michael Schnigge. First he tried it online, then by phone. “I hung on the phone most of the day. It was always busy. At 5 pm I finally got on hold. And after 35 minutes on hold, I was told: appointments are all booked out.”
He is not alone with his dissatisfaction with vaccination. The criticism of Germany’s vaccination strategy is great, because in the first quarter only about ten percent of the population were vaccinated against the corona virus due to the shortage of vaccines. Testing, on the other hand, runs like an assembly line.
“This is a very nice Easter”
While Michael Schnigge vented his disappointment with the vaccination chaos, the Kordt family was relieved during a visit. The last three weeks have been a nightmare for the family of four.
So close yet so far. This is what the last three weeks of the Kordt family looked like: Father Christoph upstairs, mother Lina with little Nalu downstairs.
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“I met a friend over three weeks ago in the evening who had done a quick test in the morning,” says Christoph Kordt. “So we met in the evenings after many months and spent a few hours together.” A short time later, however, the friend tested positive. A test is always just a snapshot.
After the news, Christoph Kordt immediately isolated himself. Father Christoph Kordt spent the last few weeks in the bedroom on the first floor of the house, mother Lina Kordt-Lisztewink looked after one-year-old Nalu on the ground floor alone and 12-year-old Luca was brought to live with his grandparents. Christoph Kordt tested himself regularly. At first, the tests for COVID-19 were negative – after just under a week it was suddenly positive. From then on, the actual two-week quarantine began.
Finally reunited at Easter: the Kordt family
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“These three weeks of quarantine were really bad,” says Christoph Kordt, who fortunately had an easy course. He was alone in his room, couldn’t do anything and knew that he was more of a burden during that time. Wife Lina always pushed his food into the well-ventilated dressing room and called him. That is over now, says father Christoph. After the whole family tested negative on Easter Sunday, they can be together again for the first time on Easter. “It’s a very nice Easter. You can’t imagine how long three weeks can be.”
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