COVID-19 assessment and testing sites coming to Ottawa, says eastern Ontario health official

By Mike Vlasveld

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit says its biggest concern ahead of a coronavirus outbreak in the region is overloading local hospitals.

Medical Officer of Health and CEO Dr. Paul Roumeliotis says the more people that get infected, the larger the number of people among them that will require hospitalization or urgent care.

“We're now quite busy setting up centres,” he says. “We can set up an assessment centre or a testing centre where people who have mild symptoms can just go and get tested and go home.”

Dr. Roumeliotis says the centres will, ideally, not be located in hospitals. If a testing centre does end up on a hospital campus, it will be in a separate building from the main hospital.

The doctor believes there will eventually be several sites in Ottawa that can test for COVID-19.

The coronavirus test includes a nose swab. In Ottawa, the plan is to be able to do testing on site and be able to get results back within four to six hours of the test.

Dr. Roumeliotis says the positive news right now is that the risk in Canada is still low, despite one coronavirus-related death in British Columbia, so health officials have some time to prepare for the incoming virus.

He hopes COVID-19 is able to be held off in eastern Ontario at least until the end of flu season, so that hospitals have more capacity to handle a potential outbreak.

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