The latest shipment of rapid COVID-19 test kits to Alberta has been delayed, the chief medical officer of health announced on social media.
In a post on Twitter Tuesday evening, Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Alberta Health has learned the expected supply of at-home rapid test kits has been delayed from the federal government and manufacturers.
“Alberta Health is working hard to obtain more supply as soon as possible,” Hinshaw said.
Also on Twitter, Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping said Health Canada committed to sending 16.25 million rapid tests to Alberta in January. The province has received 500,000 tests so far this month, according to Copping, and there is no firm delivery date for the remaining tests.
“We’re doing everything we can to meet our commitments to Albertans given the limited supply, with a priority on health-care workers and schools,” the minister said.
As of Jan. 11, nearly 1.7 million rapid tests have been sent to schools, Copping said. That represents about 40 per cent of the initial commitment of 4.3 million tests for this week.
“We’re working to confirm delivery of the remainder by the end of the week, from the federal government and/or from our own supply.”
The health minister said another 4.3 million tests are committed to schools the week of Jan. 24.
“Alberta’s government has directly procured nearly 14 million tests for the province. The first one million have been delivered, but we’re encountering delays from our suppliers as well due to the pressure on the global supply chain,” Copping said.
In an update on COVID-19 Wednesday morning, Minister of Public Services and Procurement of Canada Filomena Tassi addressed the delay. Several issues are at play and the demand for rapid tests has escalated.
“Up until the beginning of January, we had procured and delivered every test the provinces and territories were asking for. Of course, with the onset of Omicron in December, those requests escalated,” Filomena Tassi said.
The federal government currently has 14 suppliers of rapid tests. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously committed to distributing 140 million rapid tests to provinces and territories this month.
“I have been in contact with a couple of those suppliers,” Tassi said. “My team is in regular contact and this is a very competitive market and there are issues with respect to the supply chain. Those deal with issues of labour, issues of accessing raw materials and also the cargo planes and getting transportation.
“I’m not going to undermine the fact that this is a very competitive market. We are doing absolutely everything we can to procure as many tests as possible — we have been very successful to date — and we’re going to continue to work with suppliers to ensure that if there are things, logistics that we can assist as a federal government, we are there to help those suppliers every step of the way.”
To date, Tassi said the federal government has procured over 426 million rapid tests.
“We know that this is another tool that is available to provinces and territories.”
During a private call with premiers on Monday, Trudeau was pressed about the supply of rapid antigen tests.
The demand for rapid test kits has skyrocketed across Canada, including here in Alberta, as access to PCR testing has become more limited. Many Albertans have not been able to find rapid test kits at local pharmacies, despite the province saying the kits would be available to Albertans every two weeks.
Nancy Ranu is the operator of Rainbow Day Care & Out of School Care in south Edmonton, where four staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 since Jan. 3.
The facility was using rapid tests to test everyone at the daycare on a daily basis, but they’ve since run out of kits. Ranu said another shipment was expected Wednesday, but it didn’t arrive.
“With the children, there’s no sickness. We kept testing them for the last week and they were negative. Now we’re run out of tests,” she said.
“We don’t know now. We don’t know who’s positive, who’s negative.”
She admits the uncertainty is a bit nerve-wracking, but said they are being extra cautious when it comes to public health protocols.
“We just walk around thinking everybody has it, just being extra cautious,” she said, adding touch surfaces are disinfected every half hour and at least three metres of distancing is encouraged when possible between staff members.
“We’re sending children and staff home even if they have a tickle (in their throat),” she said. “We are a little nervous.”
Ranu said the daycare is managing for now, as long as no more staff members fall ill. She said if they continue to lose staff, they may have to make some changes.
“We’ll go back to, sort of, beginning of COVID where we were catering to only the first responders. We might have to go to that situation. Right now we’re OK, we’re managing… we’re meeting our ratios… I’m crossing my fingers no more positive (cases).”
Currently in Alberta, only high-risk cases are eligible for PCR tests, including pregnant women and those who live and work in high-risk settings. Full eligibility criteria can be found on the Alberta government’s website.
Hinshaw said people with mild illness and no risk factors don’t need a test and can manage their symptoms at home, even if a rapid test is not available.
Wednesday’s COVID-19 data in Alberta
Hospitalizations from COVID-19 increased again Wednesday to 748, up from 708 on Tuesday. ICU admissions increased slightly to 82, up from 80 on Tuesday.
An additional 15 deaths were reported to Alberta Health in the last 24 hours, bringing the province’s death toll to 3,367 since the pandemic began.
Alberta reported 6,789 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday from 17,815 tests. The positivity rate is 38.3 per cent.
There are now 61,229 lab-confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta.
Because of the current PCR test eligibility, Alberta health officials have said the number of people currently infected with COVID-19 is much higher than the reported case count.