On Nov. 21 in downtown Halifax, N.S., health officials opened a pop-up rapid testing clinic where almost anyone in the community who wanted a 15-minute test for COVID-19 could get one.
Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious diseases expert with the Nova Scotia Health Authority and Dalhousie University acknowledges that it’s easier right now for Nova Scotia to do surveillance testing in the community because their case counts are extremely low compared to provinces outside Atlantic Canada. When health systems are overwhelmed by a raging second wave, pop-up clinics are of limited use at best.
But over the past few months, many other places in Canada could have been experimenting in this way with rapid testing, but chose not to. Although numerous pilot projects are now underway across the country, in general the rollout of rapid testing in Canada has been tepid, small-scale and very cautious.
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