Expansion of take-home test kits

More children under the age of 12 will receive free COVID-19 rapid tests kits in efforts to detect COVID19 cases early.

About 80,000 rapid test kits were distributed to children in pre-primary to Grade 6 in Nova Scotia's public school system earlier in the school year as part of the pilot program, called Test to Protect Kids.

Within the next few weeks, private schools, licensed and unlicensed day cares, families with children at home, and homeschooling families with children ages 3 to 11 will be offered nose swab testing kits as part of an expansion of the program. Each package will contain four takehome rapid COVID-19 tests with a set of instructions on how to complete the test.

Volunteers are needed to put together rapid test kits for the program, which will provide 260,000 rapid tests.

Public schools will distribute additional nose swab testing kits to families with children in preprimary to Grade 6 who want them. Each package will contain two take-home rapid COVID-19 tests with a set of instructions on how to complete the test.

Public health wants families to use the test:

• if it is difficult for a family to get to a COVID19 testing site and the child has symptoms of COVID19

• if a child only has one mild symptom and does not need a lab-based PCR test

• as long as they are comfortable doing a shallow nose swab on their child.