Students to be provided with home COVID test kits

Students will soon be bringing home more than a test paper with a ‘well done’ sticker to show parents.

With COVID cases surging, Algoma Public Health (APH) will be sending students home after school to parents or guardians with rapid antigen screening kits.

“Given the local surge in cases and with the holiday season fast approaching, Algoma Public Health (APH), in collaboration with local school boards, is taking additional action to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and further protect in-person learning. We are pleased to offer take-home rapid antigen screening kits for students at your child’s school,” stated Dr. Jennifer Loo, APH medical officer of health and CEO in a letter, dated Dec. 3, 2021, sent to parents and guardians.

APH says screening is an extra tool to cut down the risk of outbreaks and potential school closures because children with COVID-19 infection are often not symptomatic.

All eligible elementary students (Grades K-8) will be sent home with one kit which includes a total of five rapid antigen tests. 

A child’s participation in rapid antigen screening is voluntary, Loo wrote.

Students are not required to participate in order to attend school. 

The use of rapid antigen testing is only recommended for students who:

• are not fully vaccinated (at this point, that would mean students 12 and older)
• have no symptoms of COVID-19
• have not been identified as a high-risk close contact to a confirmed case of COVID-19
• have not been a confirmed case of COVID-19 within the last 90 days

Instructions on how to use the take-home rapid antigen screening kit will be sent home with students. An instructional video on how to perform the rapid test at home can also be viewed by parents and students. 

Students participating are to test starting immediately, the day after the kit is received, at home prior to attending school or taking the bus, consistently twice a week (at least three days between tests) over a period of two and a half weeks.

As an example, APH says, students may choose to test on Monday and Thursday, Tuesday and Friday, or Wednesday and Saturday.

Parents or guardians may want to administer the screening on children who may need help (such as younger children). 

Results of a child’s test will be known within 15 minutes. 

If the test is negative, a child may attend school as usual. 

If the result is positive, a child will need a PCR test to confirm the result as soon as possible. Such a child must self-isolate and stay home from school until they receive their test results. 

The health unit says that while rapid antigen testing is another tool to use to limit the spread of COVID-19, it is important to note that a negative test does not replace other public health measures. 

“It’s important that your child continue with wearing a well-fitted mask, staying within their cohort, completing daily symptom screening before going to school or getting on the bus, and getting vaccinated when they become eligible,” APH states.

Updated information on cases or outbreaks of COVID in schools at all four Sault and area school boards is updated daily at 10:30 a.m. and may be found on the Ontario government's COVID-19 Cases in Schools website.

A Letter to the Editor at SooToday, published Dec. 1, 2021, urged school board administrators, trustees and other elected officials and public health officials to make the test kits available to students, ensure additional air filtering in schools, have vaccine clinics at schools and provide home PCR test kits.

The letter was composed and signed by several Sault parents, many of them doctors. 

Meanwhile, as far as the current COVID-19 situation at Sault Area Hospital (SAH) goes, Brandy Sharp Young, SAH spokesperson in an email received Wednesday stated “we currently have eight COVID-19 admissions; none of the admitted patients are in the ICU. ICU capacity is stable at this time.”