Ontario sending students home with five rapid COVID-19 antigen tests for winter break

Ontario is preparing to send a pack of five rapid antigen COVID-19 tests home with every school child in the province in time for winter break, in a massive effort to screen kids over the holidays and prevent infected kids from re-entering schools in January.

Ontario health officials said that sometime in mid-December, schools will hand out 11 million rapid antigen COVID-19 tests – enough for all the roughly 2.2 million public school students in the province – with instructions that they use one every three or four days over the winter break, starting on Dec. 23.

Anyone who tests positive with the antigen tests will then be required to take a confirmatory PCR COVID-19 test.

But participation is voluntary and any child who does not take the rapid tests will be allowed to return to school in January.

The move is a major sea change from official Ford government policy this school year.