City and health partners working to expand testing capacity

Ottawa's medical officer of health says the city’s public health unit is working to expand testing capacity amid a surge of demand with the arrival of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

The Ottawa COVID-19 Testing Taskforce announced a pause on drop-in tests at the city's assessment centres to ensure there is capacity for essential workers who need urgent COVID-19 tests. While many members of the public are unable to book COVID-19 tests at the moment, the taskforce says they still processed nearly 3,700 swabs at local assessment centres on Tuesday.

Dr. Vera Etches told a news conference on Wednesday that all levels of government are working to expand capacity in the city.

"There's been a lot of frustration around access to testing in Ottawa lately," Etches said. "It is something the provincial and federal governments are working on, to grow that supply of rapid antigen tests and we think that's coming in the new year."

She also said Ontario Health is looking at brining in third-party providers, such as non-hospital health-care companies to boost capacity for PCR tests.