Officials urge parents to get children tested

A rapid drop in the number of children being tested for COVID -19 in Ottawa is worrying health officials and making it harder for them to understand the true rate of infection in the community.

And that could make it more difficult to reopen schools, something parents and child health leaders say is important for children.

“It is really hindering our ability to know whether we have got things under control or not,” said Dr. Ken Farion, an emergency physician at CHEO and operations and medical lead for the Ottawa COVID -19 Testing Task Force.

Last week 729 children were tested at CHEO and its assessment centre for children at Brewer. A month earlier, when daily case counts were lower, more than 1,500 children under 18 were being tested a week.

That drop has coincided with a spike in positivity rates — meaning a significantly higher number of children who are tested are positive for COVID -19. Early in January, the positivity rate among children in Ottawa reached a whopping 14 per cent, a number that has decreased slightly since then. Farion said an optimum positivity rate is between 2 and 2.5 per cent of children being tested and suggests a larger number of the cases in the community are being identified.

“There is a problem here. We are just not seeing people coming out. There are definitely cases,” he said. “We know we are missing some.”

One key to the drop in children being tested is that they are not in school.

Farion said it is likely since families are staying home, parents assume either their children's mild symptoms are not important or that, since they aren't going anywhere, they don't need to be tested. Children generally tend to have milder symptoms when infected with COVID than adults — especially older adults.

But if cases in children go unidentified and contacts are not notified and tested, COVID-19 can then be transmitted through the family into the community and can end up infecting someone who goes into a congregate living setting where an outbreak can cause serious illness.

“It is not to say they are superspreaders. It is just that if we chalk up mild symptoms as `It is just a cold', we will miss cases.”

Farion said the public health screening tool that parents are asked to use before sending their children to school might not be looked at now that children are attending school virtually at home.

Although there are signs that a post holiday spike in COVID-19 cases in Ottawa is beginning to level off, Farion said the low numbers of children being tested muddies the understanding of case counts in the city.

Without enough testing, he said, pockets of infection can be missed that are “almost like embers about to create a bit of a wildfire.”

CHEO's Chief of Staff Dr. Lindy Samson echoed the concern that not enough children are being tested for COVID-19 in the city.

She said some families might avoid being tested because of the hardship isolation would place on the family.

But she said more testing is necessary for health officials to be able to make the best decisions, including about opening schools.

Farion said it is difficult to make a case to the provincial government about school reopening without enough data.

“We all want schools open. The level of evidence to suggest that things are under control and that we are staying under control will be improved if we have more testing and are able to follow through on those cases.”