Rapid COVID tests key tool for offices

Nearly 10 per cent of Nova Scotia’s workforce part of testing program

HALIFAX — Once a week, Akin Guler goes to a meeting room in his office where one of his coworkers — trained to administer rapid COVID-19 tests — inserts a small swab into his nostril.

Within 15 minutes he has the result: One stripe is a negative result, two stripes positive.

“It’s like a pregnancy test,” says Guler, channel sales manager at Rimot.io Inc., a Dartmouth, N.S., tech company. “It’s really quick.”

He adds: “I feel like this is a social responsibility. It’s not only for me, it’s for all of us.”

As workers return to office buildings and job sites across the country, some are being offered rapid COVID-19 tests at work.

The workplace testing program, led by Creative Destruction Lab’s rapid screening consortium, is being rolled out across Canada in an effort to identify asymptomatic infections.

Those behind the project say it will help limit workplace outbreaks and possibly prevent future provincewide lockdowns, keeping the economy and Canada’s corporate world open.

“Vaccination is what’s ultimately needed,” says Jeff Larsen, CDL’s Atlantic site lead and executive director of innovation and entrepreneurship at Dalhousie University.

“But until there’s herd immunity from vaccines, if the virus starts to spread and we don’t know who has it, we have to go into lockdown,” he says. “With widespread testing and tracing solutions, we can be more targeted.”

Some of Canada’s largest employers like Air Canada, Rogers Communications Inc. and Loblaw Companies Ltd. joined a group piloting rapid COVID-19 testing earlier this year. The program is now being extended across the country, with very good uptake so far, Larsen said.

But in Nova Scotia, the uptake has been “extraordinary,” he said.

So far, 275 workplaces with more than 50,000 employees have agreed to participate — nearly 10 per cent of Nova Scotia’s workforce — and another 400 employers are registered for the program.

The widespread workplace uptake in Nova Scotia reflects the province’s early adoption of rapid COVID-19 tests. While some provinces have been slower to use the rapid testing kits provided by the federal government, Nova Scotia began using them at pop-up testing sites last November.

Since then, the province has administered about 350,000 rapid tests, said Heather Fairbairn, a spokesperson for the provincial Health Department.

While the quick diagnostic tests have faced scrutiny over accuracy, Nova Scotia has identified hundreds of asymptomatic cases using rapid tests: There have been 378 confirmed positive cases identified at popup testing sites since April 1, Fairbairn said.

Now the province is partnering with CDL, local chambers of commerce and seven Regional Enterprise Networks to offer workplace asymptomatic testing. Companies with more than 50 employees can sign up directly through the province, while those that are smaller work with CDL.

The province’s use of rapid screening has helped CDL reach more employers in Nova Scotia, Larsen said.

“Nova Scotia has embraced community rapid testing, which has led to this positive uptake that we’re seeing,” he said.

“If we normalize it now in the workplace, we can keep the virus at bay and minimize the chances of having to lock down.”

Larsen adds: “I think people have a sense that we’re in this together and these tools will make a difference.”