Testing in Ontario remains below target
Ford pivots from saying province is leading country to blaming system
Ontario’s processing of COVID-19 tests fell short once again Tuesday, prompting Premier Doug Ford to pledge he will “continue to push the system” for better results as the number of cases topped 20,000 for the first time, with 1,500 deaths.
Labs across the province produced results for 12,961 samples on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health said Wednesday, well below a previous high of 17,000 and shy of the daily target of 16,000 that’s expected to get a better picture of the virus’s spread.
Health Minister Christine Elliott acknowledged in a tweet that expanding the testing is “critical to containing and limiting the spread” of the illness.
“We continue to invest in further expanding our COVID-19 testing,” Elliott said.
On Tuesday, figures revealed just over 10,000 samples had been processed Monday — about half the province’s lab capacity of 19,525 — setting Ford off a day after he had boasted Ontario was “leading the country” in testing. He blamed some regional health units and told medical officers of health to “pick up your socks.”
The province’s chief medical officer Dr. David Williams later said there is no courier system to get test samples to labs on weekends and some health units did not get all the testing materials they needed.
“If I sit back and don’t push these regions, who else is going to push them?” Ford told his Wednesday news conference. “I’m accountable for this whole province and I’m going to push the system … until we get the numbers,” he added when asked about ruffled feathers at some regional health units. “If they take it personal, then I apologize.”
Critics say wider testing and using the province’s full testing capacity are essential as Ford’s government continues to ease restrictions and reopens the economy in stages, with garden centres and nurseries fully opening on Friday in time for Mother’s Day weekend.
By repeatedly missing its own targets since the outbreak began, the province has foregone 155,000 tests that could have presented a more accurate portrayal of the virus and its patterns, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. “A massive increase in COVID-19 testing within the community is necessary to reopen businesses, parks and services. The fewer tests Ontario does, the greater the risk is for people out there. Doug Ford’s job is to fix this problem, not to complain about it.”
To date, Ontario has processed 365,675 tests, representing about 2.5 per cent of the province’s 14.5 million residents. A compilation by the Star at 5 p.m. Wednesday shows health units across the province reported another 429 Ontarians had confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours, an increase of 2.2 per cent, lifting the total to 20,032 since January.
There were 58 more deaths, raising fatalities to 1,543, the bulk of them in nursing homes that have been hit hard by the virus, with 174 outbreaks in progress. The infection rate for health-care workers continued to increase, with 3,013 testing positive so far, accounting for 16 per cent of the official provincial total of cases.
A leading union blamed a shortage of N95 respirator masks and other personal protective equipment for the toll. “Supplies are dangerously low in hospitals and long-term-care homes,” said the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Most of the sickened healthcare workers are in nursing homes, where 1,621 staff have active infections of COVID-19, along with 2,819 residents.
Ford said there is a hotline for nursing homes in need of personal protective equipment to call, but evaded a question on whether a promised overhaul of the long-term-care sector would result in an end to private ownership of homes.
The Ministry of Health said 13,222 Ontarians who contracted COVID-19 have recovered.