An assertion that asymptomatic testing of school children is to blame for the region moving from Orange-Restrict to Red-Control is mistaken, the region’s top doctor said today.
Dr. Penny Sutcliffe was responding to a question about a press release issued this week by a group saying it represents more than 120 small business owners in Greater Sudbury who are calling on Sudbury MPP Jamie West, Mayor Brian Bigger and city councillors to urge the province to move Sudbury back into the Orange-Restrict zone.
In the news release, the group said the health unit was moved to the Red-Control on March 8 despite having only one patient hospitalized with COVID-19 in a district of 196,000 people. The release says this is a 0.9-per-cent positivity rate and asserted that there is “very little, if any, community spread” of COVID-19.
The group claims the move to Red was precipitated by asymptomatic testing of school children, which began in area schools on Feb. 22.
Before the stay-at-home order was implemented in December, said local esthetician Natalie Gilbert, who is quoted in the release from the business owners, Sudbury was in the Green-Prevent zone, but after the break, the district was placed in Orange.
“The schools started testing asymptomatic children and now we were moved into Red, even though we only have one hospitalized Covid-19 (sic) patient in the entire district,” Gilbert said in the March 9 news release. “I am losing my job for the third time and hundreds of Sudbury businesses are at risk of permanent shutdown.”
Sutcliffe said the assertion that the district was placed in the Red Zone as a result of testing asymptomatic children is simply wrong.
“The cases we are seeing, that have put us into the Red Zone, are true cases, not all of which are related to schools,” she said.
The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario said the province has hired an independent contractor to conduct the asymptomatic testing in school settings. Any tests that screen positive for COVID-19 are then sent to the health unit for further testing.
Of those tests that have screened positive, follow-up testing hasn’t resulted in any positive cases that have come across her desk, she said. She also addressed again the claim that asymptomatic cases can’t spread the virus — they can.
“If a person tests positive during the screening testing at schools, they will go on to confirmatory testing.” she said. “It is absolutely possible for an asymptomatic person to spread the virus, but I’m telling you that’s not what we’re seeing with regards to the testing in schools.”
Not only is the assertion regarding asymptomatic testing inaccurate, it isn’t helpful, Sutcliffe said.
“Blaming the surge of cases locally on asymptomatic testing in schools is not accurate, it’s not helpful, and it really is all of us digging deeper to figure out what else we can do, not to get around the rules, but to do our best to comply with them and go even further.”
The public health measures that are in place aren’t there for the fun of it, she said. They should be taken very seriously, “and if we don’t do that better, we’re going to be in the Grey Zone.”
