Faced with exceptional demand due to the Omicron wave, supermarkets posted a record number of self-test sales.
Large retailers sold some 16.9 million Covid-19 self-tests for 25 million euros in turnover, between December 28 and January 16, according to panelist NielsenIQ.
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The sale authorized “on an exceptional basis”
The sale of self-tests to screen for Covid-19 has been authorized outside pharmacies.on an exceptional basis and until January 31, 2022by the government to cope with the explosion in demand in the context of the fifth wave of Covid-19. Asked on Friday on BFM / RMC whether or not he will continue to sell them after the end of January, the president of the strategic committee for E.Leclerc stores, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, explained that he had “understood that it was not necessary to ask, but to let the mechanics of decision“. “I don’t want to annoy the pharmacists, afterwards we have a possible service which is to sell them, find them and sell them cheaper. We are in favor of continuing to sell them at a lower price“, he said again.
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Before the Law Commission of the National Assembly on December 29, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had indicated that it was a “derogation, but in no case should this contravene the question of the pharmaceutical monopoly for medical devices in the long term“. NielsenIQ also took stock of the number of FFP2 masks sold in supermarkets over the last five weeks as of January 16: 18 million masks sold, for a turnover of 5.8 million euros. To note that, “like self-tests“, they are “sold more in the west and around major cities“.
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