TORONTO —
Ontario has received the entire first batch of rapid COVID-19 tests ordered by the federal government and plans to distribute them to select long-term care homes.
The feds signed a deal last month with Abbott Diagnostics to purchase 7.9 million ID Now tests, which are capable of producing results in less than 15 minutes without the need to be processed in a lab.
The first shipment of 100,000 of the tests arrived in Canada over the weekend and CTV News has now confirmed that the entire initial batch will be used in Ontario.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says that the government plans to distribute the tests to long-term care homes dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks as well as others that are located in rural areas and Northern Ontario, where the wait time for tests results tends to be longer.
Multiple U.S. studies have pegged the ID Now test’s accuracy at approximately 90 per cent.
Another 2.4 million of the tests are expected to arrive in Canada by the end of December, though it remains unclear how many of those Ontario will receive.
The federal government has also ordered 8.5 million of another rapid test produced by Abbott Diagnostics but has not received its first shipment of those yet.
Premier Doug Ford has previously blamed the slow rollout of rapid tests for the lab backlog that the province saw earlier this month when more than 90,000 specimens were being processed at one point.
That backlog has since been mostly eliminated.
