Province to make New Brunswick's COVID rapid test results public by end of week
CBC
New Brunswick will soon begin releasing the number of positive COVID-19 results from self-reported rapid tests, but that still won't necessarily present an accurate picture of the virus's spread in the province.
Since last week, the provincial dashboard has only reported cases captured by PCR tests administered by Public Health. Only 201 cases were reported on Sunday, compared to 840 just two days before.
But spokesperson Bruce Macfarlane says rapid self-testing will become part of the count by the end of the week.
"The Department of Health has every intention of reporting positive rapid test results and ensuring they are made available on the dashboard later this week," he said in an emailed statement.
"Enhancements will be made to the COVID-19 dashboard to include daily submitted point of care testing self-reporting positive results."
Macfarlane said Public Health has "high hopes" the majority of people who self-test as positive will go online to log their cases.
"We are hopeful that the process is user friendly and familiar, so that New Brunswickers can easily contribute to monitoring COVID-19 in the province."
But not everyone plans to do so.
"I really don't know why I would," said Dieppe sales representative Justin Babineau. "I feel logging this just gives them more numbers. I don't think they're going to do anything with it."
Babineau had what he called "very, very mild" symptoms after a Christmas vacation and took a rapid test at home on Jan. 2 as a precaution. The test was positive.
"I'm really not sure what the point would be to log it online. I followed the rules, I isolated for five days, I felt better and I went on with my life."
Jada Roche, a Carleton County data analyst whose spouse picked up rapid tests in Woodstock on Monday after they starting having symptoms, said their kits did not include any instructions on how to log their positive results.
And she said she encountered a glitch on her first attempt to report their cases.
Roche said she laughed when she saw the low PCR positive numbers on the weekend.