Deploying Rapid Tests to More Essential Workplaces
Helping stop the spread of COVID-19 in key sectors
Based on the successful use of rapid tests in select settings across Ontario, our PC government is expanding the deployment of rapid tests to even more essential workplaces and sectors to quickly identify and help stop the spread of COVID-19.
“The use of rapid tests are real gamechangers as they provide results in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days,” said Doug Ford, MPP for Etobicoke North and Premier of Ontario. “It’s important to get them out the door as quickly as possible to provide an added layer of protection for our frontline workers and vulnerable citizens, especially those in rural and remote areas of the province.”
To enhance protection against COVID-19 and its variants and support a safe, gradual return to the strengthened COVID-19 Response Framework, Ontario has deployed approximately two million rapid antigen tests and 175,000 rapid diagnostic tests to essential workplaces and highly vulnerable settings like long-term care home and retirement homes.
At scale, the province will be deploying approximately one million tests per week across targeted sectors. In addition to essential workplaces, we are providing rapid antigen tests to other targeted settings across Ontario as part of our Provincial Antigen Screening Program, including:
- long-term care homes;
- retirement homes;
- workplaces in key sectors such as manufacturing, warehousing, supply chain, construction and food processing;
- residential mental health, adult and children’s residences, supportive housing and other congregate living settings, as well as for homeless populations;
- schools that are resuming in-person learning; and
- hospitals and assessment centres in rural and remote communities, including Indigenous sites.
Ontario continues that anyone who needs a test can get a test and receive their results as quickly as possible.