Doug Ford says no need for better public access to COVID-19 testing in Ontario

There is no need for Ontario to expand access to COVID-19 testing in wake of the arrival of the Omicron variant and gatherings expected to take place over the winter holidays, Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday.

Ontario has received more than 33 million rapid COVID-19 tests from the federal government, and says it has deployed virtually all of them to test healthcare workers, residents and staff in congregate care settings, unvaccinated teachers and employees of essential businesses.

“We’ve sent rapid tests to home care, to businesses, to long-term care, to hospitals,” Ford said. “We’re handing out a million a week, those are staggering numbers.”

But outside of those settings, it is difficult for a member of the general public to access free asymptomatic COVID-19 testing of any kind, rapid or otherwise, in the province.

So far this school year, the use of rapid tests for public school students has been sparse.

They were not allowed to be used at all in schools until early October, even though private schools inexplicably got temporary access to tests from the federal stockpile one month prior.

They have so far been used to augment surveillance when students return to schools that have been closed due to outbreaks.

They have also been deployed to schools in areas of high transmission, such as Sudbury and the surrounding area.

Another 11 million rapid tests will be going home with Ontario pupils to be used during the holiday break. There will also be more than 40 mobile testing teams set up in major public spaces this holiday break to offer free testing to anyone who wants, symptomatic or otherwise.

A TDSB official said the board has already received 250,000 packages of tests from the province and they could be sent home to families as soon as next week.

Testing at pharmacies and assessment centres is limited to people showing symptoms of COVID-19, identified high-risk close contacts of identified cases and asymptomatic members of certain high-risk groups.

Rapid tests can be purchased and performed at pharmacies for between $17 and $40 per test. On the open market, they range from $10.50 per test to as high as $16 each to be used at home.

By comparison, the province’s bulk order of 11 million tests for students this December got the individual price of each test down to approximately $4.55.

Groups of parents formed community groups to run asymptomatic tests at home for their children, accessing portals where local agencies distributed tests to businesses, but were cut off in late September.

But Ontario’s opposition parties, epidemiologists, doctors and are calling on the Ford government to ensure some free public access to the general public for rapid testing for the holidays.

A petition calling for free access to rapid testing has so far garnered 7,500 signatures.

Asked why all asymptomatic Ontario residents could not obtain free rapid tests ahead of the holidays when groups will gather, Ford said the province had the best plan anywhere by virtue of the sheer volume of tests it had distributed.

“We’re covering the gamut of making sure people have the tests,” Ford said. “We have the strongest pandemic plan in the country, bar none.”

Michael Garron Hospital ICU Dr. Michael Warner said it is difficult and expensive to access rapid testing in Ontario.

"I took a poll of people of the nurses in the ICU if they knew where and how to get rapid tests, these are healthcare workers, and none of them knew the answer."

"Unfortunately, unless you are a member of a select group like the Minister mentioned, like you work in a business or an organization that has access to rapid tests, you’re stuck buying these tests like I did, 25 tests for $275. I can afford that but not everyone else can."

Pharmacist Kyro Maseh, who owns Lawlor Pharmasave in Toronto's Beaches area, told CP24 he had a mother buy a rapid test at his pharmacy on Tuesday to see if her special needs son had COVID-19.

"Yesterday I had a mother of a child with special needs pay $40 out of her pocket so that she could essentially find out if her son had COVID-19," he said. "I just find it bizarre that you’re adding this burden on a parent to protect the classroom when it should be the government that is protecting the classroom."

The NDP said rapid tests should be a major plank in the plan to protect ordinary people from gathering while infectious this holiday season.

“Let people take a rapid test before visiting with loved ones,” party leader Andrea Horwath said. “Encourage people take a rapid test at the first signs of a cold. That’s what other provinces do, and if I were premier today, that’s what Ontario would do,” she said, referring to efforts underway in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner urged the government to begin regular widespread asymptomatic COVID-19 testing of public school students.

“Doug Ford’s refusal to make free rapid tests broadly available now in elementary schools is putting kids at risk,” he said. “Outbreaks of COVID-19 in Ontario’s elementary schools are currently at the highest point of any time in the pandemic.”

“And the rate of COVID-19 transmission among children 5 – 11 is the highest of any age group.”