We are in a veritable war to contain the spread of COVID-19. One would think that we would employ all the weapons at our disposal to combat spread of this virus. However, this has not been the case when it comes to the use of rapid testing in numerous provinces in Canada. Yet, a priority recommendation last month by the Canadian government’s COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel was to increase the use of rapid testing. It has been reported that a million rapid tests procured by the federal government sit unused in warehouses where they’ll soon expire if not used.
Nobody who advocates rapid testing thinks it’s a replacement for lab-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing which is currently the gold standard for COVID testing. However, most would agree that rapid tests can be effectively used as an initial screeningmechanism in certain high risk situations. Moreover, a positive rapid test means the person can be immediately isolated until the case is confirmed with a PCR test. Quick regular screening could be done in such high risk situations as testing long-term care staff and residents, school teachers and students, warehouse and meat packing employees, hospital staff and ER patients, air travellers, etc., etc. The most widely available rapid test in Canada is the Abbott Panbio test. Compared to PCR testing, it is very simple to use and can be employed on site almost anywhere. Even trained volunteers without medical backgrounds can run the Panbio test.
I was surprised to find out that as of the beginning of February, provinces such as British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec had been reluctant to employ rapid testing to any significant degree. All three provinces have high levels of confirmed COVID cases and have implemented several lockdowns to date. On the other hand, public health officials in Nova Scotia successfully embraced rapid testing the earliest, helping to keep the number of COVID cases at a reasonably low level relative to its population. One study by Simon Fraser University concluded that screening long-term care staff every three days with a Panbio rapid test would reduce outbreaks by 45 to 55 percent compared to no regular screening. The study also concluded that doing such testing once a week would reduce outbreaks by 25 to 40 percent.
Many health experts find it mind boggling that we are not using all the tools in our toolkit. The good news is that finally provinces such as Ontario recently announced that thousands of rapid tests are being supplied to key business sectors such as manufacturing and food processing. In addition, large workplaces are at last starting to roll out rapid test screening, with Air Canada, Loblaws, Suncor and other major corporations announcing programs. It’s about time! Waiting for everyone to be vaccinated against the virus just won’t do. Despite some public health officials’ reluctance in the past to employ rapid testing tools, the time has come to get over any concerns and proceed more quickly with a rapid testing campaign. We owe it to Canadians who have largely done a good job of following the COVID-19 guidelines to the best of their ability. Canadians need all the available help they can get to end this horrific pandemic.
FROLITICKS 