COVID testing leads to busier times

These have been busier times for the lab at the Yarmouth Regional Hospital.

With increased COVID testing happening in the province, and additional testing capacity added in Yarmouth, the lab has seen an increase in the number of COVID tests it has been processing.

From April 25 to May 1, the lab processed 724 COVID tests. This included swab tests obtained at primary assessment centres (PAC) in Yarmouth, Digby and Shelburne, said Fraser Mooney, spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health.

He noted testing capacity in Yarmouth is now around 200 swabs a day. During the first COVID wave last year, a busy day at the local primary assessment centre would have been 30 or 40 tests.

“We have also been assisting with testing from Central Zone (Halifax Regional Municipality). So it has required prioritizing work and staff within our Laboratory Services program,” Mooney said.

On April 26, the Mariners Centre was added as a PAC location in Yarmouth. This is in addition to the testing site at the visitor information centre at the corner of Main and Forest streets.

“It is important to understand Mariners Centre is a primary assessment centre, and not a pop-up, or rapid testing location,” Mooney said last week. “We are not offering the rapid COVID-19 test at this site.”

In Shelburne County a primary assessment centre is located at Roseway Hospital. In Digby, there is one at Digby Station on Birch Street.

Appointments must be booked for COVID testing.

“Available appointments at primary assessment centres are posted three days in advance in our booking system,” Mooney said. “If someone does not see an available appointment, they are asked to check back. When people cancel appointments they also reappear in the booking system.”

People can book an appointment by visiting the province’s online COVID information page.

Last week the province went back into lockdown and tighter restrictions to deal with a surge in COVID cases. At the start of April there were 24 active cases of COVID-19. As of May 2, the day before this newspaper’s Monday press deadline, there were 822 active cases, with 34 people in hospital, including six in ICU.

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Last week also saw the first-ever official potential COVID exposure notices from Yarmouth posted on the province’s public alert list. On April 30 the province was telling anyone who worked at or visited these sites during the specific timeframes on the specific dates to book a COVID test.

One site was the Mariners Centre on Friday, April 23 from 1:30-4 p.m. and Saturday, April 24 from 9:30-11 a.m. (Note: This is not related to the testing site. It had not yet been set up.) The other site was Boston Pizza on April 23 from 3-5:30 p.m.

In both cases it was anticipated that anyone exposed to the virus at these locations on the named dates could develop symptoms up to, and including, May 7.