Question Period Note: TESTING CAPACITY

• What is the Government of Canada doing to ensure that Canadians have access to effective COVID-19 testing?

• Our Government is working aggressively to procure tests to meet both current and future demand as testing continues to increase across the country.

• As part of this work, we purchased three rapid tests – the Abbott ID NOW, Abbott Panbio and BD Veritor – and have worked with our provincial and territorial counterparts to allocate and distribute them.

• The first shipment of tests were sent in late October. Shipments to provinces and territories will continue each week as supply arrives in Canada.

• To date, over 350,000 Abbott IDNOW tests and nearly 4.5 million Abbott Panbio tests have been shipped to jurisdictions. In addition, the first shipment of over 200,000 BD Veritor tests is expected to arrive this week. These tests are being provided to provinces and territories at no cost to them.

• Provinces and territories will decide how to deploy these technologies, informed by the Pan-Canadian Testing and Screening Guidance that was released in October.

• We have also put into place surge support for provinces and territories, including for contact tracing, testing sample collection, and test processing in federal laboratories.

• As our top priority, we will be continuing all efforts to support jurisdictions in their efforts to manage COVID-19.

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada work closely with provincial and territorial officials and laboratories in support of a coordinated approach and conducting laboratory testing for the virus that causes COVID-19. As of September 15, 2020, over 6,200,000 patients in Canada were tested for COVID-19. Over the last week, an average of more than 47,000 people were tested a day in Canada.

On July 27, 2020, the Government of Canada announced it will provide $4.28 billion, as part of over $19 billion announced by the Prime Minister on July 16, 2020 as part of the Safe Restart Agreement, to further expand testing and contact tracing capacity, and the associated data management and information sharing systems. The objective of the Safe Restart Agreement is to ensure that Canada has the resources and information it needs to reopen the economy safely.

Beginning September 3, a table outlining progress by provinces and territories in increasing their testing capacity, including weekly updates on current testing capacity for each province and territory compared to the capacity target agreed to under the Safe Restart Agreement, has been published online.

As we move into the next phase of lifting some public health measures and re-opening some parts of the economy, cases of COVID-19 will still occur until the population has enough immunity or a vaccine is available to prevent the disease.

Testing will remain an important tool to detect and isolate new cases, follow up with close contacts, stop spread of the virus and prevent outbreaks in the community. In this next phase, testing will be critical for groups that are more vulnerable to complications from COVID-19. This testing will be an early warning for our healthcare system.

Health Canada has been working with manufacturers to enable market access for commercial diagnostic devices in order to increase Canada’s COVID-19 diagnostic capacity.

SYNOPSIS
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada are working closely with the provinces and territories to distribute the Abbott ID NOW and Abbott Panbio rapid tests, following the bulk procurement of these tests in late September/early October, as well as the procurement of BD Veritor rapid tests announced on November 10.
IF PRESSED ON HOW CANADA IS INCREASING TESTING CAPACITY

• My department continues to work with colleagues in Public Services and Procurement Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and the National Research Council to identify and support new and emerging testing and screening products and platforms.

• As emerging testing and screening products or platforms become available and approved for use in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada will work with provincial public health laboratories to acquire them to augment existing testing capacity.