COVID-19 testing to be made available in Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws pharmacies in Alberta

EDMONTON (660 NEWS) –Alberta’s top doctor is recommending teachers and staff get tested for COVID-19 before the school year starts, with a new partnership announced to help with an expected increase for asymptomatic testing.

Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws pharmacy locations across the province will offer the testing as more individuals book appointments in the next two weeks.

“Overall, it increases Alberta’s testing capacity by about 3,000 to 4,000 tests per day,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health said during Tuesday’s COVID-19 update.

“We will need this added capacity plus that of all community pharmacists who are already testing for COVID-19 if we are to test these 90,000 teachers and school staff in just a few weeks.”

Hinshaw encourages teachers and staff members to book an appointment before the school year starts and asks those who aren’t showing any symptoms of the virus to hold off on testing until later in September.

Hinshaw reiterates that people not showing symptoms should not seek testing to allow students, teachers and staff to get tested before the school year. You should only get tested if you are showing symptoms

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Alberta is currently sitting at an average of about two new cases per 100,000 Albertans per day, which has been compared to average daily cases rates of more than 25 per 100,000 in Florida, Georgia and Texas, where school reopening issues have been identified, Hinshaw said.

“In fact, our average new daily case rates per 100,000 are lower than almost all of the U.S. states with the exception of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, which are sitting at approximately 1.5 new cases per day per 100,000.

“This indicates that we are in a different context than States where we are watching some of those issues take place and we need to strive to make sure our community transmission is as low as possible.”

Hinshaw reminded Albertans that they are in this together and can work to minimize the risk to students and staff in schools.

A document on what schools and parents should do if there is an outbreak situation will be released next week, with Hinshaw saying it depends on each individual scenario including when the student’s symptoms started and whether they attended school while symptomatic.

Hinshaw says there’s no *number threshold* to shut down a school.

Says when they identify a COVID case, public health works to identify close contacts to make sure they stay home and get tested.

Says it’s a case and context specific decision.

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“The simple fact of symptoms would not require those in the classroom to be in quarantine or isolation. What would happen is there would be encouragement of the parents to have that child brought for testing, if the child tested positive for COVID then that public health investigation would [look at] who the close contacts would be.”

Hinshaw added that there’s no specific threshold on how many cases would need to be found before a school would be shut down.

The decision to close a school would be made by local public health, the school, the local school board with discussions with the ministry of health and education.