Data, expert reports, interviews with government officials: The duty chronicles the evolution of the government’s approach to self-testing.
February 27, 2020 A first case of COVID-19 is declared in Quebec.
September 2020 Seven months after the start of the pandemic, the Canadian government acquires its first rapid tests. Two technologies compete: one requires a small machine for analysis, like the ID NOW, and the other displays its result on a small plastic plate, like the Abbott brand Panbio or, later, the BTNX tests.
October 29, 2020 The Quebec Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, qualifies the rapid tests as a complementary measure. “They are not as precise as the much more sophisticated tests that we are doing now,” he says of the PCR tests analyzed in the laboratory.
November 24, 2020 1.2 million rapid tests are sent to Quebec, announces the federal government.
January 14, 2021 Eleven months after the first case of COVID-19 in Quebec, the Legault government allows the use of rapid tests during outbreaks in seniors’ residences or in isolated regions.
January 29, 2021 The duty reveals that less than 1% of the 2.6 million rapid tests delivered to Quebec by the federal government have been used since October 2020. Nova Scotia, meanwhile, is organizing rapid screening sessions in public places to detect people asymptomatic.
February 11, 2021 Quebec’s national director of public health, Dr Horacio Arruda, admits that Public Health had doubts about the reliability of the tests. “There have been problems with the rapid tests at the White House. There were problems in some situations. “
February 17, 2021 Quebec makes rapid tests available to certain private companies in the event of an outbreak.
March 2021 Provinces, including Quebec, have asked the federal government to suspend deliveries of rapid tests, since they had large quantities in stock that they were not using.
September 2021 Quebec begins sending rapid Panbio antigenic tests to schools. These tests should be handled by trained school personnel. On September 14, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, is delighted to have received “an opinion, recently, from Public Health which now allows us to work, very clearly, with rapid tests”. Federal deliveries resume.
November 2021 Twenty months after the start of the pandemic in Quebec, Public Health formally recommends that the government begin the distribution of rapid tests to the general population, according to Daniel Paré, director of the vaccination campaign.
November 9, 2021 A new variant is detected. Christened Omicron on November 26, it is classified as of concern by the WHO.
November 26, 2021 The office of the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, confirms to the Duty that he is “in [son] intention to bring more autonomy in the way of [faire du dépistage chez] Quebecers ”thanks to rapid tests.
November 29, 2021 A first case of Omicron is detected in Quebec.
December 3, 2021 The Legault government is calling on the federal government to deliver ten million rapid tests before the holiday season. According to Health Canada data, Quebec had already received a total of about eight million Panbio antigenic rapid tests, but the province requires training for their use.
December 9, 2021 Quebec announces a plan to distribute three million rapid tests to elementary and preschool children. These tests received from Ottawa, in boxes of five and branded BTNX, are very similar to the Panbio tests. They are sent to the general population, carried in school bags.
December 10, 2021 In the midst of the Omicron wave, the Federal Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, believes that rapid tests “were largely underused” by the provinces for several months. He promises that all tests requested by the provinces will be delivered for the holidays.
December 14, 2021 Access to rapid tests is extended to the entire Quebec population. The news led to a rush to pharmacies on December 20, the first day of distribution, a few days before the Christmas holidays.
January 4, 2022 Quebec announces that laboratory-processed PCR tests are now reserved for essential workers. The general population will therefore only have access to rapid tests to detect a COVID-19 infection.
January 5, 2022 The Legault government plans to distribute seven million additional rapid tests to students by mid-February. The federal government announces the sending of 31.5 million rapid tests to Quebec during the month of January.
January 11, 2022 A new distribution of rapid tests to the Quebec population is underway in pharmacies. The tests take off quickly despite the freezing cold. Pharmacists believe that the shortage will be absorbed with the deliveries of tests by the federal government planned in the coming weeks.
With Boris Proulx and François Carabin