Province announces rapid COVID-19 testing in schools, but no update on which ones in Mississauga and Brampton will be included
Published October 5, 2021 at 4:25 pm
Peel Public Health is not ready to comment on which schools in Mississauga and Brampton will implement COVID-19 testing.
In response to today’s announcement by the Ontario government that school-based antigen testing will begin as early as next week, Peel’s Medical Officer of Health (MOH), Dr. Lawrence Loh, said his department is still working on plans regarding how the program will be deployed.
“Discussions with the office of the provincial Chief Medical Officer of Health and other health units continue,” Dr. Loh said. “We will provide updates on local plans around rapid testing as they become available.”
The Province announced the initiative on Tuesday as a way to detect COVID-19 cases in school children at an early stage to avoid outbreaks that could lead to classroom closures.
According to the Province, areas that have been hardest hit by COVID-19—a category of which Brampton and Mississauga fall into—will be targeted.
The program will focus on voluntary, rapid asymptomatic screening for unvaccinated children and students—it won’t include testing for fully-vaccinated individuals given the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as the risks posed to the disruption of learning as a result of false positives.
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