{"id":12877,"date":"2020-04-24T19:08:50","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T23:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=12877"},"modified":"2020-05-19T20:53:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T00:53:57","slug":"covid-19-we-may-yet-get-to-where-we-need-to-be-in-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/covid-19-we-may-yet-get-to-where-we-need-to-be-in-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: We may yet get to where we need to be in testing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author of the article:<\/p>\n

James Bagnall<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Publishing date:<\/p>\n

1\u00a0day ago<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 6 minute read<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Testing capacity for COVID-19 has tripled in the lab that serves regional hospitals and the Brewer Park arena assessment centre (above).<\/span> About 30 people stood waiting in the rain to be tested at Ottawa’s COVID-19 testing centre at Brewer Arena Tuesday.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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With the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Ottawa now tracking above 1,030, including 42 deaths \u2014 with both metrics still growing \u2014 perhaps now is not the time to embrace optimism.<\/p>\n

Yet, after conversations Friday with a leading microbiologist and one determined entrepreneur, it\u2019s difficult not to feel a little more comfortable about how this pandemic will finally play out.<\/p>\n

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COVID-19: We may yet get to where we need to be in testing<\/span> Back to video<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/header>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Marc Desjardins is the head and regional lead of the division of microbiology for the Eastern Ontario Regional Microbiology Laboratory, which serves 16 hospitals in the region from Pembroke to Cornwall. The lab in the past few weeks has tripled its capacity for doing COVID-19 tests to 1,132 per day. That represents about half the testing done in the greater Ottawa area, including the provincial lab and Bio-Test Laboratory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can accommodate the amount of testing that needs to be done,\u201d Desjardins said, adding that his regional lab was running at just 50 per cent to 60 per cent of capacity.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Marc<\/img><\/span>
A file photo of Marc Desjardins,head and regional lead of the division of microbiology for the Eastern Ontario Regional Microbiology Laboratory.<\/span> University of Ottawa<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His biggest roadblock: the availability of specialty swabs used to collect samples of the virus. \u201cRight now, swabs are limiting factor,\u201d Desjardins said in reference to upping the number of tests from the hospitals and local assessment facilities such as the Brewer Park arena.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s dominant supplier of swabs, Copan, is headquartered in the Lombardy region of Italy. There are also a half-dozen other manufacturers listed on Health Canada\u2019s approved list, but all are experiencing shortages. Even so, the country\u2019s labs have managed to scrounge enough supplies to nearly double the number of daily tests from a month ago.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Paul Lem, CEO and founder of Spartan Bioscience, doesn\u2019t have an issue with swabs. His problem is that he just can\u2019t expand quickly enough. In the past few weeks, Lem has secured orders for more than two million COVID-19 test cartridges from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and the federal government. Along the way he obtained Health Canada approval for his technology and organized a deal with a high-volume contract manufacturer in Toronto. This will allow him to bump up Spartan\u2019s production of test kits to several hundred thousand per week by July. Capacity would escalate from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are only five of us worldwide who make portable test kits,\u201d Lem said, \u201cand we are all swamped.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nor does there appear to be an end to the demand for his company\u2019s DNA-analyzer, dubbed the Spartan Cube. Barring unexpected technical hiccoughs, governments for the foreseeable future will purchase whatever Spartan can make. After that, Lem intends to start selling COVID-19 test kits to corporations and, eventually, for export. Lem does not foresee a problem with the supply of swabs, which are made by contract manufacturers locally \u2014 L-D Tool & Die \u2014 as well as in Toronto. The swabs are customized for the Cube and incompatible with other test kits.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/img><\/span>
Paul Lem, CEO of Spartan Bioscience Inc. in Ottawa.<\/span> Julie Oliver<\/span>\/Postmedia<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The additional testing capacity bodes well for Canada\u2019s re-emergence from economic lockdown, a transition that will depend mightily on accurate COVID-19 tests to identify those who have the virus and isolate them. Testing will be combined with contact tracing and continued social distancing where necessary.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But, even with the recent push to add testing capacity, will it be enough to give us sufficient knowledge about this elusive virus?<\/p>\n

Theresa Tam, Canada\u2019s chief public health officer, said this week the national target should be about 60,000 tests per day, roughy triple what it is today. This would include the full range from lab and point-of-care tests for the COVID-19 virus to serological tests that would screen blood for antibodies. That target looks to be a stretch for the country, certainly during the next few months. But bottlenecks of key ingredients should eventually be resolved, unless the spread of the virus really gets out of control in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On the plus side, the Ottawa Valley\u2019s testing capacity already matches Tam\u2019s target on a per capita basis, which augurs well.<\/p>\n

A national capacity surge to 60,000 tests per day is a reasonable benchmark, according to a recent study by Harvard University researchers, published earlier this month by Science<\/em> journal. The study offers intriguing insight into how the virus will behave over the next few months, depending on what kind of testing and social distancing we do.<\/p>\n

The researchers, led by Stephen Kissler and Christine Tedijan, studied two coronaviruses that were \u201cclose genetic cousins\u201d of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and tracked their behaviour through multiple seasons.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/sci\/early\/2020\/04\/14\/science.abb5793.full.pdf<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study concluded there would have to be \u201csustained, widespread surveillance\u201d of the U.S. population to assess how much physical distancing would be necessary in the short term and to prevent longer-term resurgences. The researchers envisaged multiple periods of physical distancing as the population gradually builds up immunity.<\/p>\n

In analyzing the research, Harvard professor Ashish Jha concluded the U.S. would have to at least triple the number of tests to more than 500,000 per day, which would correspond to about 57,000 per day in Canada. These would include tests for the virus and antibodies alike.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The authors also offered the hope that, if serological tests revealed that many more people than expected had been infected, but showed no symptoms, then the periods of physical distancing might be reduced. Much would depend on whether those who test positive for the virus \u2014 whether they showed symptoms or not \u2014 developed immunity and for how long.<\/p>\n

Again, this reinforces the importance of testing.<\/p>\n

Health Canada has approved 14 companies, including Spartan Bioscience and U.S. rivals Cephied and Abbott Laboratories, for COVID-19 tests under emergency authorization. No firm has yet been approved for serological tests, though roughly a dozen have applied. Spartan is not one of them \u2014 its products handle only DNA tests. However, Desjardins\u2019 lab is working on a solution to test for COVID-19 antibodies. The U.S. Federal Drug Administration has approved more than 60 test-kit manufacturers under its emergency-use authorization, including four specializing in antibody tests.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tests alone will not make it safe to fully re-open provincial economies. Employing a small army of workers to trace the contacts of people who test positive is another key to containing the spread of the virus. When Wuhan \u2014 the original epicentre of the coronavirus \u2014 went into lockdown in January, it assigned more than 9,000 to the labour-intensive task of tracking the spread. That was about one for every 1,000 residents.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/img><\/span>
A Swiss doctor holds a swab kit manufactured by Copan, which is based in the hard-hit Lombardy region of Italy.<\/span> DENIS BALIBOUSE<\/span>\/REUTERS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coincidentally, Ottawa Public Health says it has anywhere between 55 to 115 workers doing case and contact management: one-tenth Wuhan\u2019s intensity, though it\u2019s difficult to know whether the data is comparable.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The more data health agencies compile across Canada, the more we\u2019ll know about how the virus is circulating and whether parts of the country are actually developing significant immunity.<\/p>\n

Certainly provinces have been affected in sharply different ways. The influence of Quebec\u2019s early March spring break \u2014 two weeks earlier than in most other provinces \u2014 is well known. The return later in March of hundreds of thousands of snowbirds from the southern U.S. likely also contributed to the spread of the virus, particularly in Ontario and Quebec and, to a lesser extent, in Alberta.<\/p>\n

B.C. witnessed an early outbreak of coronavirus across the border in Washington State, so its residents may have been more cautious earlier. Certainly B.C. \u2014 along with Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick \u2014 have the lowest incidences of COVID-19 per capita and are closest to re-opening parts of their economies.<\/p>\n

Even so, it\u2019s little wonder many Canadians are still nervous about the idea of re-opening provincial economies. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has from the beginning displayed a disturbing ability to surprise us in a bad way. And there is much we still don\u2019t know. Marc Desjardins and Paul Lem are doing their parts to change that.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author of the article:James BagnallPublishing date:1\u00a0day ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 6 minute readTesting capacity for COVID-19 has tripled in the lab that serves regional hospitals and the Brewer Park arena assessment centre (above). About 30 people stood waiting in the rain to be tested at Ottawa’s COVID-19 testing centre at Brewer Arena Tuesday.Article contentWith the number of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[120,162,161,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16153,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12877\/revisions\/16153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}