Winnipeg company allows businesses to track results from rapid COVID-19 tests

A local company says they can help organizations track COVID-19 cases from rapid tests through an anonymous online portal.

Epidemiologist and Founder of EPI Research Cynthia Carr says her company can help fill the gap currently being felt in Manitoba due to overwhelming COVID cases.

“The resource we offer takes in to account the capacity issues,” she says.

Carr’s rapid test portal allows businesses and organizations to anonymously report results from rapid tests.

“It’s important to continue to understand who’s impacted and how the symptoms are changing, so that we know what to look for,” she says.

“There’s no names and no identifiers collected, we can’t just take the data and do with it whatever we want.”

She says businesses can decide how little or much anonymous data is shared with EPI Research or asked of employees.

“Age groups, any changes to where the most cases are, the types of symptoms people are experiencing, how fast we can see changes from negative to positive test results, all of that data is very important for continued knowledge in the public health setting,” Carr says.

“At the end of the day there’s this set of data which will be helpful on the scientific side perhaps to learn something particularly about speed, about symptoms and about ages of people.”

Carr says she’s aware many businesses are already doing rapid testing in the workplace. She says her online tool can be modified to each employers needs, even offering contact tracing.

She says reached out to the government about using the tool in the public to track cases and data, however she says she’s never received any formal response back.

The Manitoba government currently only records COVID-19 cases through PCR testing.

Provincial health officials have told Manitobans if they receive a positive result from a rapid COVID-19 test to then get a PCR test to confirm the result.

However, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin says if you’re healthy and under the age of 40, you can instead isolate and notify contacts yourself – to avoid adding to the backlog of PCR testing.

“If you have mild symptoms and are a healthy young person you can consider just isolating at home without a test right now,” Dr. Roussin said during a Christmas Eve press conference. The announcement was made due to the current testing capacity and increased transmission he said.