Modelling expert says with Omicron around the corner, BC is behind on rapid tests

An independent modelling expert in BC says she’s pleased that the province has begun speaking “more positively” about the use of rapid antigen testing to detect COVID—but it’s put BC behind in dealing with the Omicron variant.

Facing questions on Tuesday, provincial health officer Dr Bonnie Henry told reporters that other provinces like Alberta or Nova Scotia have received “different” rapid tests from the federal government than BC has, and that BC doesn’t have at-home rapid tests that people can administer on themselves.

“Many of them that we have are ones that require a health professional to take a swab, and we’ve deployed those in areas where they’re most useful. We don’t have the ones that Alberta is offering,” Henry said at a press conference.

She said the tests BC has in its possession need to be processed through a machine to receive results.

Henry clarified later on in the Tuesday afternoon press conference that BC has in fact received 700,000 tests that can be self-administered at home—but that they come in bulk packages that require a lot of manpower to separate out so they can be given to individuals.

She said the province hopes it will receive the kind of at-home tests it was expecting by the new year.

However, it’s not true that BC doesn’t have access to the same kinds of rapid tests that other provinces do.

Nova Scotia’s rapid testing program

Nova Scotia provides residents there with free at-home tests from 5 different companies: BTNX, Abbot Panbio, BD Veritor, QuickVue, and Lucira.

It’s accurate that BC hasn’t been provided with BTNX or QuickVue tests. But the federal government has to date sent BC 2,180,850 Panbio tests (231,296 of which have been used), 389,990 BD Veritor tests (55,803 of which have been used), and 2,600 Lucira tests (0 of which have been used).

BC has also received 626,970 Abbot ID Now tests, which require administration by a healthcare provider and a machine for operation, and the province has used 27,369 of those.

Furthermore, Nova Scotia also received at-home tests in bulk packaging that needed separating before they could be sent out. But back in September, that province put volunteers to work doing just that.

CBC reported that Dr Lisa Barret, infectious disease doctor at Dalhousie University, said anyone could volunteer for that because the only skill needed is to be able to put supplies in plastic bags.

“Go big or go home,” Barret told the CBC in September.

The Omicron variant

Dr Sarah Otto, who’s an evolutionary biologist at UBC and a member of the independent BC COVID-19 Modelling Group, said it would have been good if BC had also done that work in September.

“Or we could do it now,” she said.

“My lab is doing it right now. I bought those kits for my students so that they would have something that they could use. Yeah, and we could have definitely assembled them.”

Otto told the Beacon that with the Omicron variant creating global concerns and now transmitting in BC, having easily accessible at-home rapid tests could help the province weather that storm.

“Rapid antigen tests are really, really helpful to us. You can take them at home when you’re not sure. If you’re about to go out, if you’re going to a gathering or even to the store and you’re not sure about an exposure—taking these before you go means you can know whether you’re infected even before you have symptoms,” she said.

“That’s going to be more important than ever with Omicron. Because, especially for vaccinated individuals that have mild cases, they just may not notice their symptoms, and they may go out and expose others, not even realizing they’re sick. And we’ve seen that before. But I think it’s gonna be even more the case, now that Omicron spreads among vaccinated individuals.”

Henry has been reluctant to endorse the use of rapid tests for individuals in an everyday setting, such as ahead of events or gatherings—she has told reporters on multiple occasions that they are not a silver bullet to stopping all COVID transmission and are better suited for outbreak situations or cases where people know they’ve been exposed.

Equity issues

Otto said she thinks BC’s hesitancy around rapid tests comes from a belief that people will use a negative test to prove they can go out even if they are symptomatic—but she said in her experience, people use them the exact opposite way.

“They’re like: ‘well, I was gonna go to school, I was gonna go to work, I was going to go to this gathering, but just to be sure, I want to take those tests’. And so it is a test-to-play kind of approach, or test-to-stay,” she said.

“The rapid antigen tests help us catch those individuals who are infected and had no idea that they were infected and allows them to stay home. And that’s especially important when many people have no symptoms, or such mild symptoms that they confuse it with something else and not COVID.”

Otto sees another problem brewing if rapid tests continue to be scarcely available in BC. Rapid tests are available online—for a price. A 5-pack from BTNX, for example, costs $58/box plus $22 shipping. A 25-pack of the Abbot Panbio test costs $375.

“This is a huge equity issue. You know, I could afford the $200 for the 25 pack, but my students can’t afford that on their budget. It’s a huge inequity issue.”

She pointed out that that issue is more likely to affect lower-income, front-line, and racialized people—the same people who have been most affected by other aspects of the pandemic.