Confusion Reigns Over Rapid Tests As Scientific Table Supports ‘Test To Stay’ Approach

Key questions about rapid COVID tests, including how, where and even why to obtain them, continued to confuse politicians and ordinary citizens on Thursday, as Ontario’s science board became the latest group to support a standardized program of “try to stay”. In schools.

Voluntary rapid screening for COVID could help reduce transmission in elementary schools, especially as the Delta variant remains dominant, the advisory table says.

In new guidance published Thursday, the recommendation table recommends that when a public health unit or neighborhood experiences an increase in cases, the threshold is about 35 cases per 100,000 per week, that elementary school officials begin. weekly voluntary testing of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. .

The plan could help children without symptoms stay in class while COVID continues to show up in some schools, the guide says. A “test to stay” program, in which children can remain in the classroom if the daily tests are negative, could be an alternative to isolating students when exposed.

The debate over rapid tests as a way to keep children in the classroom and out of isolation has gained steam during the fall, but took on a new urgency with the arrival of Omicron. In late October, Ontario announced new testing measures, including take-home PCR tests (basically do-it-yourself versions of full lab tests) and the use of rapid antigen tests for asymptomatic and unvaccinated students.

PCR tests are more accurate and provide more information to health officials, but rapid antigen tests are cheaper and easier to do at home, and can be used in different situations, experts say.

Students will also receive five quick tests to take home over winter break, to take while they are away and then before returning to the classroom, although some experts have raised concerns about turning in a large number of tests without one. specific guidance on how they should be used.

“Yes [testing] it’s in everyone’s hands, which is great, and it makes people feel much, much better and much more in control, what it does is, unfortunately, open up opportunities to break that case and the contact management part ”, says Dr. Barry Pakes. , the newly appointed medical health bureau for the York region.

That is, if people trust rapid tests done at home, you run the risk that they will not get a PCR test, the more detailed test that is done in a laboratory, if they get a positive result or do not contact they. your close contacts. In those cases, health officials would also not know about new cases or possible outbreaks, he says.

They also couldn’t track things like Omicron incidents without the PCR results, he adds.

Which is not to say that they shouldn’t be used, but rather that they come with specific rules, he says. For example, some companies have used them, but required that staff conduct tests at specific intervals and then report the results.

A Toronto-based group of doctors also released a letter Thursday in support of a trial approach, rejecting what they described as the “far-reaching” effects of school closings on children, both academically and socially.

Dr. Alanna Golden, a primary care physician in Toronto who signed the letter, says there is evidence that rapid tests, if used at consistent intervals for entire classrooms or groups of students, are as good at preventing spread as isolation.

She points to a Lancet study who analyzed 201 schools in England and found that daily testing and isolation were equally effective in stopping transmission.

“No one is going to say that it is perfect. No one is going to say that we will not miss a single positive case of COVID. Nothing is perfect, ”she says. “But at the end of the day, it’s all a risk-reward. [analysis]. “

Golden, who used to work as a child mental health social worker, says the lockdowns have “substantially harmed” children and that rates of everything from eating disorders to obesity and abuse have risen as a result.

“We are going to see the impact of this for years and years and years and years to come.”

The new scientific table guide provides specific rules on when such tests should be done, as health advocates ask for more clarity on how the tests are used.

Despite current concern about the Omicron variant, Delta remains the dominant strain in Ontario and around the world. This particular strain is difficult to control because people who are infected have a higher viral load that peaks more quickly after infection compared to previous strains, says the scientific table.

The amount of virus in infected people’s systems is the reason Delta is most contagious, but it also makes it easier to detect using rapid tests, according to the short notes.

In Queen’s Park, opposition parties kept up the pressure on Prime Minister Doug Ford for a broader rollout of rapid and free antigen tests as daily new COVID-19 infections reached 1,290, their highest level in six months, and the families are about to get together for the holiday season.

“People want to be sure they are not spreading COVID,” said new Democratic MP Catherine Fife (Waterloo).

Ford responded that the province is distributing 34 million tests, but was wrong to say that parents can use some of the packaged tests for schoolchildren to take home over the Christmas holidays to regularly check for COVID beforehand. in-person classes resume in January.

“Eleven million tests … are distributed in each student’s home, and they are in packs of five so they can be used by their parents, their siblings, anyone in the home. That’s what you call proper distribution, ”he said in the legislature’s daily question period in an exchange with Fife.

But the government previously announced that rapid tests are only for students, who are instructed to get tested every three to four days during the holidays in hopes of keeping infected children out of class when they return to schools.

The confusion Ford created is dangerous, Fife said.

“The prime minister is making it up on the fly,” he accused. “When you are inconsistent in your messages, especially during a public health crisis, that is irresponsible.”

Ford’s comments came a day after Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott appeared to tell the legislature that anyone could get a quick test for free at a pharmacy, which is not the case.

His statement was later clarified with an email from a spokesperson who said he was “referring to the fact that anyone who needs a test, per province guidelines, can get one in Ontario.”

Ford said 34 million tests have been distributed at 40,000 sites across the province, including higher-risk workplaces, child care centers, nursing homes with random tests that will begin in a few days in areas where many people congregate.

“We’re putting pop-up locations in shopping malls and malls, in transit locations, in workplaces, to make sure it’s convenient for people to get tested.”

The new guidance comes at a time of confusion over why the millions of rapid tests purchased by the federal government have not been more widely deployed across the country.

According to federal numbers, the government has purchased nearly 95 million tests, about 85 percent of which have been shipped to the provinces or for federal appropriations, and yet only about 15 million have been reported to have been used so far, or about 16 percent.

Ontario has done a better-than-average job using its tests, according to those same numbers. Nearly a third of the 31 million tests the province has received so far have been reported as used.