The Trump administration reversed a plan to shut down the government website that ships free coronavirus tests to households late Tuesday, after The Washington Post reported that the administration was preparing to end the program and was evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of tests.
Comments closedThe COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how crucial testing is for disease preparedness and response, and new research from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and a team of collaborators underscores that principle.
Published in the Jan. 2 edition of The Lancet Public Health, the research included simulation and analysis that suggests public-private partnerships to develop, produce and distribute COVID-19 diagnostic tests saved an estimated 1.4 million lives and prevented about 7 million patient hospitalizations in the United States during the pandemic.
Comments closedComments closedTransparency is crucial to public health, but far too little effort has gone into informing the public about the long-term health hazards posed by repeated COVID-19 infections. That needs to change. A good place to start is by providing free rapid tests to enable Ontarians to gauge their risk and that of their loved ones. Its messaging would be clear: Results still matter.
The days of access to free rapid COVID-19 tests are over, unless you stumble across a pharmacy with a few boxes left, and most Albertans wishing to test for the virus now have to pay out of pocket.
The Alberta government has received its full allotment through the free federal government program, which ended earlier this month. Now its entire stockpile has been distributed.
Comments closedLast week, I was about to go on a date, and because I’m severely immunocompromised, we agreed he would take a COVID test using one of my rapid home PCR tests. It was a courtesy—he felt perfectly fine— but he tested positive. By the next day, he was sick as a dog. And, by the way, the rapid antigen test he took when he got home that night was negative.
Regardless of how you much of a health risk you see in COVID, it is still, at best, an inconvenience that costs you days off work. A simple home PCR test saved me from that inconvenience (and worse), and if I’d relied on the common rapid antigen test or done nothing at all, I would probably be sick right now.
Comments closedThe federal government, which spent billions on COVID-19 rapid tests during the height of the pandemic, says it will stop supplying provinces and territories with those tests. Heidi Petracek explains the move, and the reaction from some provinces and doctors.
Comments closedComments closedWe know that COVID-19 is not an equal-opportunity disease, we’ve known this for four years. COVID tends to have a disproportionately high impact on people who are lower on the socio-economic ladder; people who don’t have the luxury of working from home, people who are doing essential work, people who because of their income are living in more crowded conditions. These are all risk factors and they’re all socio-economically tied. So to say, ‘Yeah, there’s this tool that will keep you safe if you have enough money to pay for it,’ I think is an abdication of what public health is supposed to be, which is public.
Cue Health, the once high-flying San [Diego] biotech supplying rapid COVID-19 test kits to the NBA and others, is shutting down this week.
Cue’s closure comes a week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to throw out any of its COVID-19 test kits because they could give false results. The San Diego firm said it has stopped selling the COVID-19 tests, which was its only fully FDA-approved commercial product.
Comments closedCOVID-19 rapid tests in New Brunswick will stop being distributed through community-based distribution sites when the current supply runs out, which the province says will likely be by the end of next month.
A news release from the New Brunswick government Thursday says, aside from a few specific groups, testing hasn’t been recommended for the general public since March 2023. Separate testing guidelines remain in place for certain settings, such as special care homes.
“However, our guidance has changed throughout the pandemic as the virus has evolved,” said Dr. Yves Léger, the province’s acting chief medical officer of health. “Testing will still be recommended for certain groups but, for the general public, the focus is on staying home when you are ill. That remains the most important measure to take.”
Comments closedThe Canadian government plans to stop supplying provinces and territories with free COVID-19 rapid tests, which has an infection control epidemiologist worried about two-tiered health care, increased spread and increased health-care costs.
“The federal government continues to support Canada’s rapid testing needs while the federal inventory remains,” Health Canada spokesperson Nicholas Janveau told CBC News.
Comments closedA new study has analysed 26 RATs from Australia and Canada, finding only six could effectively detect the lowest concentrations of COVID-19.
Patients across the globe have come to rely on rapid antigen tests (RATs) to confirm a COVID-19 diagnosis, but a new Australian study has revealed most are not producing accurate results.
Researchers from James Cook University (JCU) say they were left ‘shocked’ after an analysis of 26 RATs from Australia and Canada found just six were effective at detecting the lowest concentration of COVID-19.
One Canadian test failed to detect the COVID-19 protein entirely at any level of concentration.
Comments closedA ground-breaking study by James Cook University researchers has produced damning findings on several COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) available in Australia and overseas.
The new joint study by JCU and National Research Council Canada analysed 16 RATs approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and 10 by Health Canada, using a JCU-developed COVID-19 protein and its Canadian counterpart as reference materials.
Out of the total 26 RATs compared, only six were found to be effective at detecting the lowest concentration of the COVID-19 reference proteins in the dilution series used for benchmarking.
Comments closedNew Brunswick is mulling the future of its COVID-19 rapid point-of-care testing program, as the virus claimed two more lives and hospitalized 17 people, including a child under four.
“Demand for rapid tests has been steadily declining since last fall, and the province is currently determining its next steps with regards to the COVID-19 tests,” said Department of Health spokesperson Sean Hatchard.
He made the comment in response to questions from CBC News about how much longer the province will continue to offer free rapid test kits and whether it’s considering phasing them out.
Comments closedThe US government’s free at-home Covid-19 test program will be suspended Friday, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Since November, residential households in the US have been able to submit an order through Covidtests.gov for four individual rapid antigen tests. All orders placed on or before Friday will be fulfilled, according to ASPR, an operating division of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“ASPR has delivered over 1.8 billion free COVID-19 tests to the American people through COVIDTests.gov and direct distribution pathways and will continue distributing millions of tests per week to long-term care facilities, food banks, health centers, and schools,” an ASPR spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday.
Comments closedWith the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years in the rear-view, measures like masks, social distancing and free COVID-19 test kits have continued to wind down.
On Wednesday, the Government of Saskatchewan confirmed it will no longer supply free tests, which have been widely available at voluntary distribution sites like public libraries.
In response to the pandemic, the federal government procured and distributed rapid antigen tests to provinces and territories, making them freely available to individuals and families as a way to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.
Comments closedA single-center study conducted at a free community testing site in Maryland suggests that patient-administered BinaxNow COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RATs) have similar accuracy as those performed by a clinician, although the results can be misinterpreted or falsely negative.
Researchers from the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital and Johns Hopkins University and their collaborators compared the sensitivity and specificity of Abbott’s BinaxNOW home RAT with those administered by a healthcare provider and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from February to July 2022, a period of Omicron variant predominance.
The median age of the 953 participants was 34 years, 60.6% were women, 58.6% were White, 98.2% were English-speaking, and 34.1% had at least one COVID-19 symptom. Hospital staff administered both a RAT and an RT-PCR test to participants, who then self-tested with a RAT, the results of which were both self-reported and reviewed by the researchers.
Comments closedThe Nova Scotia government has changed the brand of COVID-19 rapid tests it distributes due to the newer tests having a longer expiry date.
In a statement, Nova Scotia Health spokesperson Jennifer Lewandowski said the province has transitioned to the Flowflex COVID-19 rapid tests, as they have a longer expiry date than the previously used BTNX rapid tests.
Comments closed