(Montreal) Quebec will distribute rapid tests to all elementary schools in the province, starting with the regions where the cases of COVID-19 are the most numerous. As the holidays approach, each student will receive five.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) made the announcement Thursday morning. Each student will receive five of these tests, in a kit that will also include instructions. As the Holidays approach, they may be carried out at “the slightest symptom similar to those of COVID-19”, notes the MSSS in a press release issued Thursday.
The school service centers in the Montreal, Estrie, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, Montérégie and Laurentides regions will receive these rapid tests this week and will be responsible for distributing them in their schools.
In the other regions of the province, they will be distributed as of next Monday. That’s more than three million tests that should end up in families in time for the Christmas holidays.
The results of these tests are known in a few minutes, but Quebec recalls that they are less reliable than those used in the laboratory. In the event of a positive test, “the parents must go with the child to a designated screening center in their region to confirm this diagnosis,” advises the Ministry of Health.