Lambton county opens student-only COVID test sites

But what works for one region might not work for others. MD says

A county in southwestern Ontario has established COVID-19 assessment centres exclusively for schoolchildren to reduce the amount of time kids have to spend waiting for a test.

Lambton County hopes the sites will help get students back into classrooms faster if they’re dealing with mild seasonal illnesses but need to rule out the possibility of having the novel coronavirus.

Two of the by-appointment centres opened earlier this month — just as students returned to school — and had performed 247 tests as of Tuesday. A third site was set to open Thursday. Appointments currently need to be made by phone but an online booking system is in the works.

The student-only centres have been “very, very, very busy,” according to the region’s top doctor.

“We knew there would be this increased demand for testing, we knew there would be a bunch of kids with mild illness, and we tried to be a little bit proactive and a little bit innovative about how we can handle it,” said Dr. Sudit Ranade, medical officer of health for the county that includes Sarnia.

Currently, parents in Ontario are required to screen their children for COVID-19 symptoms daily and keep them home if they are sick. Kids with mild symptoms, like a runny nose, can return to school if they have a negative test result.

Ranade said the response to the student-only testing sites has been positive.

“The parents who have experienced it have really appreciated it and I think they appreciate the idea that we want to help get their kids back to school,” he said.

Ranade cautioned, however, that what works for his region might not work for others.

Its other assessment centres are small and spread out, he said. A surge in testing demand when schools opened could have meant long waits for kids with seasonal sniffles if they could only get assessed at those centres, he said.