Canada 'grossly underutilizing' rapid tests, experts warn — even as COVID-19 cases tick up

When Dr. David Juurlink joined some friends for dinner in the U.K. during a September vacation, he was surprised to learn they had a stockpile of rapid COVID-19 tests at their home. Hundreds, in fact — all provided for free by British public health officials.

Those friends gave Juurlink's family a few tests to bring back to Toronto, while other friends overseas later sent him another 14 from their personal trove.

"We've kind of treated these things like gold," he told CBC News. "Because it's been so hard to get them otherwise."

Across Canada, there's patchwork access to rapid tests, even though the country has millions of the devices on hand. In certain provinces, affordability remains an issue.

While some jurisdictions are handing the tests out broadly, others are using them primarily for schools and businesses — all while the general public can't easily add this extra piece of protection to their pandemic toolkit.

Multiple medical experts who spoke to CBC News said with temperatures dropping and indoor gatherings growing more frequent in the holiday season — and given concern over the delta and omicron variants — more Canadians deserve easier access to rapid testing.

WATCH | Ontario physician describes experience trying to get rapid COVID-19 tests:

Juurlink, a toxicologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, acknowledged the tests aren't perfect or foolproof, but said they make up for that in their speed and convenience. 

"If you could go to your bathroom medicine cabinet, open up a test, put a small swab in your nose, and within 10 or 15 minutes know whether or not you pose a risk to others — I mean, just imagine how much easier that would be to do," he said.

Unlike the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests offered at hospitals and other health-care settings, which are considered the gold standard in testing, rapid antigen tests offer a quick way to detect a coronavirus infection.

While the highly sensitive PCR tests are sent off for lab analysis and typically take at least a day to provide patients with results, rapid tests are a bit like an at-home pregnancy test: A do-it-yourself version that shows results in around 15 minutes.

To get a cross-country picture of rapid-test usage, CBC News reached out to the federal government and each province and territory, finding various regions are providing these tests only to certain segments of the population.

"In general, in Canadian settings, we're still grossly underutilizing these," said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist in Toronto. "These are cheap, easy-to-use tests that can really drive smart behaviour."

The federal government has purchased more than 94 million rapid tests as of Nov. 30.