Over the past two years, multiple COVID-19 variants have upended our daily lives. For weeks now, the highly transmissible Omicron variant has surged. Many faced canceled Christmas gatherings due to positive cases, while others delayed winter vacations to minimize risks. Since schools reopened in January, infections and contact cases have become commonplace. To combat this spread, the government implemented a new health protocol on January 3: any student identified as a contact must test on D-Day at a pharmacy or lab, followed by two self-tests. This has strained parents seeking appointments and overwhelmed practitioners short on slots.
Pharmacies are swamped daily with testing requests, creating chaos for staff. Lara, a pharmacy assistant, shared her raw experiences in an open letter on her Instagram account. "Sanitary protocols keep changing," she writes. "Patients are confused, and so are we." With the new protocol, child testing has skyrocketed. "You can't test an entire school at 7 p.m. because of one positive case per class," she laments. "I've become the one who makes children cry to test them at all costs."
Like adults, children dread nasal swabs, "crying, thrashing, screaming bloody murder," Lara describes. Exhausted parents restrain them "by force." Under certain conditions, she "refuses to test a child." But parents often "beg me, tears streaming, to test and put their child through this pain—or they can't return to school, and the parent must work." These dilemmas weigh heavily on her.
During the first lockdown in March 2020, healthcare workers were cheered at 8 p.m. Those days feel distant now. Lara shares, "Sometimes I'm attacked, called names, thrown to the wolves for saying no. Patients don't get it—politicians say 'go to the pharmacy for tests'!"
Testing children takes an emotional toll. "I cry being the one torturing children, making kids and parents cry, force-testing dozens after school," Lara confesses. "These innocent children asked for none of this." Positive cases lead to harsh isolation: "Parents tell me: 'She'll be locked in her room for a week, meals on a tray by the door, no hugs or kisses until isolation ends.'"
Per the latest sanitary protocol update last Thursday, children no longer require testing for new positive cases detected within seven days.
