A new corona test regulation will come into force on Friday. For previously free citizen tests, three euros are due, with the exception of vulnerable population groups.
The short time between the announcement and implementation of the new strategy of just under a week puts Berlin test centers under pressure: On Tuesday, Jürgen Simon was still “completely unclear” which customer data should be collected from Friday and how it should be processed. Simon, who runs four test centers in Kreuzberg and Falkensee, is missing detailed instructions that he can use to train his 30 employees. So far he has only read a press release from the Federal Ministry of Health.
Children up to the age of five, pregnant women in the first trimester, visitors to clinics and nursing homes, household members of infected people, residents of facilities for the disabled and people who cannot be vaccinated are not liable to pay. Verification documents should be presented at the test.
It remains unclear whether such certificates have to be scanned. Anyone who makes mistakes, says Simon, could violate data protection or have to expect the federal government to make claims for reimbursement after six months.
Since he also develops and licenses software for documentation, Simon has another problem: all of the programs used in this area would have to be partially rewritten to take account of the new regulation.
According to the Senate, Berlin currently has 456 commercial test centers, and there are no longer any state-owned ones. The number of rapid tests has reduced weekly since early April, falling to 217,936 in the second week of June. The Senate does not expect any problems with the implementation of the regulation.
