The testing strategy in BC for COVID-19 has evolved as health officials learn more about the virus, but are enough people getting tested?
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, the testing rate in the province is just over 18,500 people per one million while the national rate is higher at just under 30-thousand per million.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry told MyPGNow.com how BC intends to close the gap.
“What we need to do now is find every case in the community as quickly as possible and make sure we prevent and stop those chains of transmission, that’s what public health will be focusing on to allow us to increase our contacts and get our economy going again.”
Last month, the province expanded its testing strategy.
Anyone who thinks they might have symptoms can now be tested.
Henry added the province has more capacity than people who need to be tested.
“And that’s where we want to continue to stay, we’re going to be looking at increasing even more as we go into the fall because we know influenza is coming back, we don’t know what’s going to happen with COVID so we need to be able to test for both of those.”
“We have adequate capacity as we are testing anybody who thinks they have symptoms right now and that’s important. There is now testing available at the short turn around times across the north.”
In Northern Health, 4,571 total tests have been conducted, the fewest of all five health authorities in BC.
Our region has 57 total cases with 50 of those recovered.
Three people are currently in hospital with one admitted to ICU.
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