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0 pointsmoritzwarhier2y ago0 comments

Not sure why you arw being downvoted, the testing center scams are estimated to have cost more than a billion euros [^1]

and from the experiences I had, the people that ran them, and their sheer abundance, this number is probably a very conservative number, and it doesn't include yet all the ones that operated on the brink of scamminess. There wasn't a need to completely and obviously fake the numbers to funnel a lot of public money into your pockets, often without providing any tangible benefit (no qualified personnel, unreliable tests, inadequate execution).

Way into 2021 many streets in the city I live in had one improvised testing center next to the other, mostly ran by people without any medical qualification, using tutorials from the internet and a process almost designed for corruption, where setting up a test center was a state-funded get-rich-quick scheme for quite a while.

[1] https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/landespolitik/betrug-corona-...

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bakuninsbart2y ago

Very rarely do I defend the last government of Germany, but the strategy was to give centers a good margin and low bureaucratic hurdle to maximize the number of testing centers and ensure that everyone can get tested everywhere. Given the seriousness and uncertainty of the situation at the time, I think that was a good call.

And there was required documentation, it was just not checked at the time. Once the situation settled down, the state started clawing back fraudulent claims.

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