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COVID-19 testing in B.C. has been ‘challenging’ according to top doctor

Testing for COVID19 has been difficult admits B.C.’s top Doctor but there may be a solution, and it has to do with STIs. Ashley Burr has the details.

VANCOUVER (CityNews) –Testing for COVID-19 in B.C. has been challenging because the number of patients has been rising quickly, according to the province’s top doctor.

“It has been challenging for sure, the volume of testing went up very dramatically in a short period of time. So while we had been trying to compensate for increased volumes of testing it kind of it all came at once. so there have been challenges at the labs,” said Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry at a news conference Saturday.

“But we have increased the capacity at the labs, and as you’ve heard there has been global shortages for the materials need for testing.”

Nine new cases were announced Saturday, bringing the provincial total up to 73.

Although there is not yet a shortage of the test swabs in B.C., the province has been proactively preparing as demand continues to increase and supply declines.

“The BCCDC has been looking at the use of a different swab that we have quite commonly, that we use for testing for sexually transmitted infections,” Henry explained.

Dr. Bonnie Henry said not everyone who has symptoms need to be tested.

“We need to focus our testing so that we’re able to make sure that people who need this test are able to get it.”

In a news release, provincial health officials said testing will be focused on people at higher-risk.

“We would like to be clear that testing is available for all who need it, but not everyone requires a test. If you have no symptoms, mild symptoms, or are a returning traveller and isolating at home, you do not require a test,” it reads. “We are continuing to test those who are part of an active investigation or outbreak cluster, those with severe illness who are hospitalized, residents of long-term care facilities and health-care workers.”

The basic advice continues to be for people to wash their hands and to self-isolate if feeling unwell.

Henry reiterated the common symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

“Early on particularly, this can look like a variety of other things,” The most common symptoms that we’re seeing in people who are positive for COVID-19 is a dry cough, fever and then shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. People also, especially early on early on, talk about aches and pains and that sort of feeling that ‘I’m fighting off something.'”

The province says it is now working on getting dedicated testing centres up and running.

The nation’s fiirst COVID-19 assessment centre opened in Ottawa Saturday.

About 200 people showed up when doors opened at 9 a.m., but many of them, as well as others who trickled in throughout the day, found they didn’t meet the criteria to be swabbed for signs of the disease caused by a novel form of coronavirus. Anyone who didn’t have a cough or fever, and who had not recently travelled out of the country or been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 was turned away.

For all the latest on the COVID-19 situation, click here.

With files from the Canadian Press.

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