Compare THRM's numbers today with Abbott which seems to be the standard. Great things are coming for Therma Bright
https://www.orangeville.com/news-story/10311437-canada-has-tens-of-millions-of-covid-19-rapid-tests-why-aren-t-we-using-them-/
Canada has tens of millions of COVID-19 rapid tests. Why aren’t we using them?
Monday, January 18, 2021
It’s a question that was repeatedly raised by health professionals and opposition politicians in the fall, as the country headed into the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The federal government has since procured about 38 million rapid tests, with about 14 million of them so far distributed across the country.
Now that they’re here, are they even being used?
As Canada grapples with the second wave of the pandemic — exacerbated by emerging new variants of the virus — usage of the rapid tests vary depending on the province, and they continue to divide health professionals.
One physician told the Star it’s disappointing that the tests have yet to be more widely used, while another said the tests are not the game-changers some governments have said they are.
Meanwhile, the federal expert advisory panel on testing and screening for COVID-19 released a report Friday recommending that the use of rapid tests as a screening tool be accelerated.
The number of rapid tests used so far in Canada is difficult to confirm given that Health Canada doesn’t track their use and not all provinces responded to the Star’s requests for comment.
Dr. Irfan Dhalla, co-chair of the federal expert advisory panel, said it’s his understanding that fewer than 20 per cent of the tests distributed across the country have been used. These tests include millions of the Abbott Panbio test, a rapid test that can detect the protein of the virus.
“So we’re sitting on millions and millions of these rapid antigen tests and I think the question arises: Well why aren’t we using them more in these hot spots that we hear about?” said Dhalla, a practising physician and a vice-president at Unity Health Toronto.
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The gold standard test to diagnose an individual with COVID-19 remains the lab-based PCR test, but the advisory panel along with some advocates point out that rapid tests can play a role in screening asymptomatic individuals for COVID-19, such as in workplaces and schools, to help prevent transmission.
Some experts have argued the rapid tests are less capable of picking up the virus and therefore less reliable. But Dr. Funmi Okunola, a B.C.-based COVID-19 medical adviser, explained the tests’ sensitivity is highest when the person is contagious, and therefore an effective tool at screening individuals for COVID-19.
Abbott has also said that in “numerous studies,” both the Panbio rapid antigen test and its ID NOW rapid molecular test have demonstrated sensitivity above 90 per cent when used on a person when they are most contagious.
Okunola said she’s disappointed that rapid tests have yet to be more widely used across Canada, as some provinces begin or continue to roll out pilot projects with the tests.
“Public health struggles, and some in the medical profession struggle, with getting their head around that you need different tests for different scenarios,” said Okunola, president of Kojala Medical Enterprises Ltd.
“The PCR test is a diagnostic tool and really should be kept for the medical profession to use to diagnose and sometimes confirm the results of a rapid antigen test, whereas the rapid tests are screening tools. They screen people who are contagious out of our community, so that those people don’t go around spreading COVID to everyone else.
“And people can’t seem to get their head around that concept. Until they do, (the rapid tests) are not going to be used properly, they’re not going to be understood how to be used.”
Dhalla said rapid tests should not be seen as the equivalent to, or a substitute for, the lab-based PCR test, especially for those who are showing symptoms or are close contacts of a confirmed case.
But there is absolutely a role for them to play in the system, he said, noting their quick turnaround time — as little as 15 minutes — and that some of them are relatively inexpensive.
“The whole idea is that by using rapid antigen tests more, we’re able to give people the information they need to change their behaviour, to isolate, and to tell their contacts, or to have public health come and do contact tracing, and so we can break those chains of transmission,” he said. “And this is especially important in workplaces and schools.”
He chalks up the slow rollout of the tests partly due to “conservatism” in the health-care system, acknowledging that he was also slow himself to come around to the idea of using rapid antigen tests.
One example of a project involving rapid antigen tests that drew praise from public health experts last year was in Nova Scotia. The tests were used at a pop-up site in Halifax for individuals who had frequented bars and restaurants in the last two weeks, but who likely would not have qualified for lab-based testing due to a lack of symptoms.
Positive results from the pop-up site were then confirmed using the lab-based PCR test.
A Nova Scotia department of health spokesperson said the province continues to use rapid antigen tests at pop-up sites for people who are aged 16 or older, asymptomatic and have not attended potential exposure locations identified by public health. The province has so far used just over 14,000 of the 287,000 rapid tests it says it has received from Ottawa.
Quebec said last week it would begin making greater use of rapid tests in some settings following a report from an expert committee delivered just days after the province’s health minister described the tests as unnecessary.
The Alberta government said “broader implementation of rapid testing” is now underway following several testing pilots last year. The province has received about 1 million rapid tests, and has completed about 10,000 rapid tests so far, Alberta Health Services said.
And in Ontario, where Premier Doug Ford called the tests game-changers last year, 3.5 million Panbio rapid antigen tests have been received as of Jan. 5.
The Ministry of Health said some of the tests have been deployed to “industry partners” including Ontario Power Generation, Air Canada and Magna, and will also be used as part of a screening program for long-term-care homes.
Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @JacquesGallant