Province to pilot take-home tests for Ontario secondary students exposed to COVID-19

thestar.com
Aug. 24, 2021
Kristin Rushowy

The government is launching an eight-week pilot project in a number of boards across the province to distribute take-home COVID-19 test kits to high school students and staff exposed to COVID-19, according to a memo sent to directors of education Tuesday morning.

The memo, obtained by the Star, said the program will begin the week of Sept. 7 as most schools reopen, targetting 13 public health units -- encompassing about 40 boards, including those in Durham, Peel and York Regions -- and that “through this pilot, students and staff who are vaccinated and asymptomatic will receive a take-home self-collection kit when they have been identified as a high-risk contact as part of an identified cohort or outbreak.”

It will run until the end of October and could be expanded province-wide, wrote Deputy Education Minister Nancy Naylor.

“The pilot project is intended for vaccinated, asymptomatic high-risk contacts (both staff/students). However, students are not required to disclose their vaccination status in order to participate in the pilot. Participation in the pilot is voluntary for staff/students. Students, staff and families will continue to have the option to seek testing through their local assessment centre/specimen collection centre or the option to isolate,” Naylor said in the memo.

“This testing approach is in addition to locally driven testing initiatives and may be expanded throughout the school year based on uptake, effectiveness, and demand.”

A similar approach has been used in Toronto and Ottawa -- including Michael Garron Hospital in East York, where its school outreach team provided take-home test kits to families after exposure. Students were provided with PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests with an easy mouth or nasal swab they could do themselves.

For the provincial pilot, principals in schools are to hand out kits to teens in exposed classes or cohorts -- with access to how-to videos online.

“Schools will be the drop-off location for completed and packaged specimens and will be provided drop-off boxes,” the memo says. “An on-demand courier will pick up specimens from school locations. Completed and properly packaged specimens do not pose a safety risk.”

Health units were chosen based on “based on local public health context, including vaccination rates and recent historical data on positivity rates,” Naylor also wrote.

“A mix of schools was identified within 13 public health units to achieve a diverse mix of geographies and a balance of school settings (i.e., considering factors such as location, enrolment size, proximity to local testing centres). Consideration was also given to site distribution across identified school boards. These factors were considered to draw experiences and lessons learned to inform potential expansion and a broader provincial roll-out.”

She said Toronto and Ottawa boards are not a part of the pilot “to avoid duplicating services that are already being made broadly available in these regions.”

A government source told the Star that the pilot will make testing “more accessible, to more families in Ontario” and will “ensure turnaround time on results to reduce student absenteeism and keep kids in class” if exposed to COVID -- a concern among parents when children were learning in-person last year as delayed test results kept kids out of school longer than needed.

In general, when students or staff require COVID testing because of exposure, the province is looking for “a testing approach that is as minimally invasive as possible (e.g. nasal, mouth and saliva testing),” the Naylor memo says, urging boards to work with their public health units and ensure testing options like mobile clinics are available.

Health units taking part in the provincial pilot are: Chatham-Kent, Durham Region, Eastern Ontario, Grey Bruce, Haldimand-Norfolk, Middlesex-London, Niagara Region, Northwestern, Peel Region, Porcupine, Thunder Bay, Windsor-Essex and York Region.

In a report on back-to-school safety recommendations, pediatric experts at Sick Kids and CHEO (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario), low-barrier testing was encouraged in low-COVID areas “as an early warning system for emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and increased transmission.”

It also said that to boost testing uptake, less invasive tests should be used with accessible testing locations, including pop-up clinics and take-home kits -- and that rapid results are key.