The provincial government is changing its cornavirus testing guidelines.
The goal is to prioritize those who are at the greatest risk, while shifting away from untargeted asymptomatic testing.
Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe says Ontarians should only seek testing at assessment centres if they are:
1. Showing COVD-19 symptoms
2. Have been exposed to a confirmed case of the virus, as informed by your public health unit or exposure notification through the COVID Alert app
3. A resident or work in a setting that has an outbreak, as informed by your public health unit
4. A resident or work in an at-risk setting such as long-term care homes, shelters and health care.
Dr. Yaffe says these people are the ones they need to make sure are getting tested as quickly as possible in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.
She adds doing this will help support access to testing for those who need it and help us to prevent and control the spread of the virus in Ontario.
Starting Friday anyone can get tested at select pharmacies, however, the bad news for local residents is there are no participating pharmacies in all of northern Ontario.
A number of testing sites in Ontario, including Dryden, are experiencing a huge increase in the volume of calls and delays.
The Ontario government is also spending an additional $1.07 billion to expand testing and case and contact management and investing $30 million to prevent and manage outbreaks in priority sectors, including the province’s long-term care homes, retirement homes and schools.
Ontario is reporting 409 new cases of the coronavirus Thursday, bringing the provincial total to 48,496.
