Ontario may soon have to 'put some limitations' on PCR testing amid surging case counts

Ontario may soon have to 'put some limitations' on PCR testing in order to ensure there are sufficient resources on hand to respond to outbreaks and protect long-term care facilities, the top public health official says.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore made the comment during a briefing on Tuesday afternoon, as Ontarians continued to report days-long waits to access a PCR test.

Testing turnaround times have also slowed in recent days, as lab resources have been further stretched.

“I think we have had 44,000 of the 70,000 (available) PCR tests used on a daily basis recently. We are not at our full capacity yet but we want to keep some of it for outbreak management and long-term care facilities,” Moore said. “We have to anticipate that as this virus continues to double every few days, which is what it wants to do, that we may have to put some limitations on the PCR and the rapid antigen testing (RAT) and to be able to use RAT testing for diagnostic purposes if we don't have complete PCR.”

Moore said that the province has likely already reached a point where it needs to save its limited supplies of rapid antigen tests to use on health-care professionals and other essential workers, who might be a close contact of a positive case who would otherwise being required to self-isolate for an extended period.