Parent-Led COVID-19 Rapid Testing Program at Toronto School Sparks Interest in Other Communities | The Canadian News

When Betty Zou and a group of concerned parents in East Toronto hatched a plan to create a rapid COVID-19 testing program at their children’s school, they never imagined that they would soon be providing tutorials and sharing “how-to” documents with families in communities around the world. Canada.

“Since we launched, we have received a ton of email inquiries from schools in the area and even other districts, such as Peel, Etobicoke, Burlington, as far away as Saskatoon and Surrey, BC from other parents who are simply interested in replicate our model in their schools, ”he said.

Zou and the Earl Beatty Community Asymptomatic Testing team receive rapid tests from the StaySafe Rapid Antigen Detection Program in the Kitchener-Waterloo region free of charge.

“Health Canada and the Waterloo region and the province of Ontario approached us primarily to try to implement rapid workplace tests, so we decided to launch a pilot initiative in the Waterloo region to support workplaces.” explained Sarah Mostowich, the Lead at StaySafe program.

Mostowich recently said the program has received “a lot of calls” from parent communities and other community groups to purchase rapid test kits.

“We have been working closely with Health Canada and the province and they have told us that we should not have supply problems,” he added.

The parent-led program at Earl Beatty Junior and Senior Public School started with around 60 students, but in just two weeks it has exploded to include more than half of the student population.

“We were surprised by the acceptance and interest in the parenting community and it just exceeded all of our expectations,” said Zou.

There is no question that running a program for more than 200 students requires a lot of work, he noted.

“Pack up the test kits and then have a designated pick-up window once a week where parents come by their porch and do a very safe exchange or delivery of COVID for their tests for the week,” he explained.

Maryn Madoff, whose daughter attends nearby RH McGregor Elementary School, wants to replicate the program.

“We want the children to be in school. We don’t want to see outbreaks in schools, cases in schools. We want to keep them safe, ”he said.

Madoff acknowledged that being on maternity leave gives her time to dedicate to launching the program, but that it may not be possible in all communities.

“I have the time that I can dedicate to implement this program, to run this program, to do everything we have to do to take the tests, so that the children are evaluated,” he said.

“What worries me is these schools where they don’t have a body of parents that can do this because the parents are working so hard. They do not have time. They don’t have the capacity to implement this, the means to implement it … And so I think we need the government to do something about it. “

For this reason, the organizing parents of Earl Beatty launched a petition, urging the Ontario government to “make rapid COVID-19 tests available to all unvaccinated Ontario children.”

“We recognize that we are extremely fortunate and privileged to be able to organize this rapid testing program for our school. We also recognize that there are other communities where a program like this could have a tremendous impact, but they may not have the resources to organize one, ”Zou said, adding,“ We ​​hope that our advocacy efforts will help protect more. children and make schools safer for children. everybody.”

Clarissa Potter, whose son attends École élémentaire La Mosaïque, also in East York, is eager to see a similar test program launched for the upcoming Thanksgiving long weekend.

“People are going to come together and this is just another layer of protection, along with hand washing, along with wearing masks … as well as getting anyone who can get vaccinated,” he said.

“This is just another layer of protection that would be useful to have in our arsenal in the fight against COVID.”

The province’s chief medical officer for health, Dr. Kieran Moore, has said that testing of students offers no additional value and that false positives could be a problem.

“We look at the evidence from all of these interventions on a regular basis and will put them into practice if we believe they have value, if they will help us keep our schools safe. But as I said earlier, our schools are not the risk. It is community activity. That’s the risk, ”Moore said at a recent news conference.

Epidemiologist Dr. Raywat Deonandan noted the benefits of a rapid testing program in schools, given that “a large contingent of students cannot be vaccinated.”

“I think it would definitely reduce the number of cases except that, A) people have to use a test and B) they have to use it correctly, and C) they have to be honest with the test result.” he said.

“But the likely result of this, when used correctly, is that it simply removes the vast majority of infectious people from the circulation on any given day, and that reduces the likelihood of transmission. “

For Betty Zou, the show has given her family peace of mind.

“Having schools open for in-person learning is very important to the health, well-being and safety of our children and this is just one additional tool that we have in the toolbox that we have not been using much so far, but that we believe. that can be really valuable in keeping schools open and protecting our children, ”he said.

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