PHOTO ALY SONG, REUTERS
Rapid tests to detect COVID-19
But why the hell is it taking so long? We can turn the question around in every way, we can’t find an answer. It is known that detecting the virus in sewage can help detect waves of COVID-19 in advance.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
The other provinces do. Quebec is perfectly capable of this: a pilot project worked until last December, but its funding was cut just before the fifth wave in a mind-blowing lack of vision.
Today, researchers have been ready for months. Their machines too. The cost is ridiculous – barely $500 a day to analyze the virus in a city like Montreal, according to the scientists involved. However, the sixth wave is breaking and we are still waiting.
The Ministry of Health has mandated the INSPQ to deploy a program. The latter affirms that the “operational modalities of the project are being developed”. We are promised news soon.
After two years of the pandemic, to see such a lack of agility and speed in the face of the challenges posed by COVID-19 is disheartening.
The alert provided by wastewater would be all the more valuable since since the end of generalized PCR tests, it is necessary to wait for hospitalizations to guess the prevalence of the virus in the population. In short, we are sailing in the dark. And no one seems in a hurry to turn on the light.