Regional official defends local virus testing rate

WATERLOO REGION — Waterloo Region’s top health official is confident as much COVID-19 testing as possible is being done locally, while saying it’s a “high priority” to improve testing.

“We are maximizing the testing within the capacity of the system right now,” said acting medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang.

“It’s definitely very important to me that our testing rates continue to go up.”

Premier Doug Ford harshly criticized some regional medical officers of health on Tuesday for the province’s inconsistent rates of COVID-19 testing, saying they weren’t ordering enough testing.

Wang was asked at Wednesday’s regional briefing if it was fair for Ford to point the blame at medical officers.

“I think the premier is trying his best, like we all are. He obviously wants to see testing results go up. I think what is important to understand is that we are trying very hard to work with our partners who actually do the testing to make sure that those rates continue to climb,” Wang said.

“I think we’re on right path in Waterloo Region … We have continued to increase the numbers that are tested here.”

Wang said it’s her assumption that the premier understands that local medical officers play a key role among other partners in the regional responses to COVID-19.

“He wants us to get the message ‘yes we want testing rates in our communities to be high.’ We totally agree with that message in our community, and we are working with our testing partners to try to increase that capacity as quickly as we can,” she said.

Before early April, there were significant shortages of swabs when at the same time the province expanded testing guidelines, and groups prioritized for testing continued to grow.

“When we had the capacity, we kept scaling up and improving our testing rates,” Wang said. “We’re just going to keep working on that.”

Between April 21 and 30, the region tested an average of 206 people daily — up from 138 between April 11 to 20, and 113 from April 1 to 10.

Wang cautioned that while lab capacity is increasing in Ontario, a whole new system is being built in the midst of a pandemic.

She said it’s important as much as possible to be thoughtful about how many tests are submitted every day to not overwhelm the new system and potentially waste swabs, which would necessitate testing people again.

“What we understand is that with all the swabs that we’re submitting now, because we’re submitting a lot, this is filling up the lab capacity that has been created and possibly at times testing it,” she said.

Daily fluctuations in testing numbers can be affected by a number of issues, such as there not being a good system over the weekend for delivering tests to the labs.

Wang was not sure why recent growth in daily testing locally lagged behind the province, but she said she wants to take a look at that later in more detail.

“I do know that what we’re doing now is filling up the lab capacity that we have and that we’re going to continue with our efforts to increase our testing rates,” Wang said.

She stressed that public health units do not do the testing, but rather that’s overseen by community partners including medical directors in nursing homes, and hospital and community assessment centres.

This region is going beyond provincial requirements to test not just all long-term care homes, but also retirement residences because they’re vulnerable and experiencing outbreaks as well.

Wang said the plan is to complete testing in all 56 of those homes in the region in the next couple of weeks.

“We are very conscious of the importance of testing and we’re going to do our very best, along with our great partners that are also ramping up their capacity, to continue to increase rates of testing,” Wang said.

Chief administrative officer Mike Murray said four new charges were laid over the last week for failing to comply with emergency orders for a total of 10 in the region. The new charges related to a personal service setting — a Kitchener nail salon — and three gatherings of more than five people — at a private Waterloo residence and two separate incidences in Cambridge public spaces.

The Wednesday morning update by public health included 871 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and four more deaths to reach a total of 94. Of all the current local cases, 395 are resolved and 40 are hospitalized.

Outbreaks are declared at 14 long-term care and retirement homes — down one from the previous day’s update. The outbreak at Stirling Heights longterm care home in Cambridge ended on Tuesday. One employee had tested positive at the residence owned by nursinghome company Revera. The outbreak at Forest Heights Revera in Kitchener, which was declared on April 1, continues. A total of 165 residents and 59 staff have tested positive, and 44 people have died.