Rapid COVID-19 surveillance testing program coming to select Ontario schools next week

Ontario's chief medical officer of health says rapid antigen tests will be sent to select schools at the highest risk of closure due to COVID-19 spread, saying a review of data “over the last couple of weeks” changed his mind about their value for unvaccinated students.

Starting next week, local public health units will be able to deploy rapid antigen test kits to schools deemed “high-risk” due to ongoing detection of cases, an outbreak, and the prevalence of COVID-19 in the surrounding community.

“If all of those boxes are getting ticked, through the medical officer of health, they will receive the testing at the (individual) school level – with support from the school board and local medical officer of health,” Moore said.

The announcement comes after groups of parents had organized surveillance testing for their schools on their own using the rapid test kits, but CP24 revealed the Ford government told two agencies to stop distributing them to anyone but businesses.

It also comes four weeks after CP24 reported that the province was shipping free rapid antigen test kits to private schools, a practice the Minister of Education’s office stopped after it was asked to comment on the policy.