Saskatchewan NDP calling for COVID-19 rapid testing and support in schools

The Saskatchewan NDP education critic is calling for rapid COVID-19 testing kits in schools but said the provincial government also needs to provide more support to schools to administer the tests.

Carla Beck said rapid testing is particularly needed in Regina schools, who are dealing with an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

With presumed and confirmed variant cases also on the rise in the city, Beck has other concerns.

As of Thursday, there are 121 confirmed cases of the B1.1.7 variant in Regina, and 368 presumptive variant cases out of the 527 total active cases within the city.

“I think it would be a big mistake to assume that this new variant is going to behave just the way that the virus was behaving last year,” Beck said.

“I’m not an expert on this, we have touched in with experts and of course the government has access to these experts; this is a variant that is more transmissible, carries a higher rate of morbidity and mortality, that seems to impact younger people.”

Safe Schools Saskatchewan spokesperson Margi Corbett is a retired teacher in Saskatoon who has been speaking with current teachers throughout the pandemic.

“It’s very nice that (Saskatchewan chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab) says all the layers of protection in schools are preventing larger outbreaks, that’s very nice but teachers can only be so super heroic,” Corbett said.

On Feb. 25, provincial government officials announced a plan to deploy more than 700,000 rapid point-of-care tests to several different sectors including schools.

The government acknowledged that many of the sectors may not have the capacity to administer the tests themselves and said the ministry of health was working with SaskBuilds and Procurement to find third-party providers to administer tests within the sectors.

The tests were allocated from the federal government.

“The ministry of health and the SHA will work with various sectors and provider groups to ensure training and support is in place to use these testing resources to their full potential,” a press release read.

Any rapid tests that come back positive need to be confirmed through a PCR test with the SHA labs. Negative tests do not need to be retested, which the government expects will reduce pressure on provincial labs.

In an email to Global News, the ministry of education said it was implementing the School Testing Deployment Plan for COVID-19 with the ministry of health in collaboration with the SHA.

“The plan has been shared with school divisions for implementation, particularly those that have been affected by the variants. We have requested that school divisions, historical high schools and qualified independent schools review the plan and work with their local medical health officer to introduce rapid testing within schools.”

In a press conference on Thursday, Health minister Paul Merriman was asked if there were any rapid testing kits currently being used in schools.

Merriman said he would have to check if any were being used.

Beck and Corbett have neither heard instances of the rapid tests being deployed in schools.

“Some of the school divisions have expressed interest in this but they have to have someone there to be able to administer the test. It has to be done in a proper way otherwise we could get a false negative or false positive,” Merriman said.

Schools will need help from the government with administering these tests, said Beck.

“What I’m hearing from school divisions and schools is they do want rapid testing but they need support from the government, they need clarity, they need clear language clear direction and they need clear messaging,” Beck said.

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