Still a rare commodity a year ago, rapid tests for COVID-19 are now filling state coffers. Quebec doesn’t know how to sell 63 million tests and Ottawa 90 million more, with at least 6.5 million expiring within 12 months.
Posted at 5:00 am
This is while Quebec schools stopped distributing the boxes of five tests, which we tore down at the beginning of winter 2021, La Presse learned.
To date, the Canadian government has made more than 680 million rapid tests available to provinces and territories. However, these deliveries ended in late January as the provinces had sufficient supplies to meet their needs.
Despite the end of federal supplies, Quebec currently has 63 million rapid tests in its warehouses. This impressive reserve is equivalent to one and a half times the tests dispensed free of charge in pharmacies since the beginning of the pandemic.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
In the winter of 2021, lines formed outside pharmacies as people rushed for rapid tests.
The Legault government is currently considering a strategy to sell those millions of tests in stock, said Department of Health and Human Services (MSSS) public relations officer Robert Maranda, without giving further details on the planned solutions.
Keep them in stock
In addition to the Quebec reserve, the federal government has about 90 million tests in stock, including 50 million tests destined for the provinces and territories that are being held for future needs.
However, these tests cannot be retained indefinitely. On the federal side, about 80,000 tests expire within 6 months, another 6.5 million tests within 7 to 12 months, and the rest of the tests within two years.
” THE [sociétés pharmaceutiques] undertake that their tests will provide valid results between the date of placing on the market and the expiry date. The test may well be effective beyond that, but Health Canada relies on the manufacturer’s information,” explains Dr. Gaston De Serres, epidemiologist at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).
“For a government that has expired tests, it will be difficult to distribute them further,” adds the specialist.
The Excluded Schools
To date, Quebec has distributed approximately 133 million rapid tests, most (57 million) distributed on the school network for students. However, the government cannot expect to distribute tests in schools in the short term to allay its reservations.
As a matter of fact, ” There are no plans to distribute rapid tests across the network,” Esther Chouinard, director of public relations at the Ministry of Education, told La Presse. School authorities who would like to receive one can still apply for one.
pharmacist in conversation
The future of the distribution of free rapid tests in pharmacies is also uncertain. Since December 2021, Quebecers aged 14 and over can obtain a box of five rapid tests for COVID-19 from pharmacies for a 30-day period.
However, this agreement between the government and pharmacists ends on March 31. “It’s not being extended at the moment, but we’re in talks. We hope that it will be settled in the next month,” Benoit Morin, president of the Association of Pharmacist Owners, told La Presse.
According to Mr Morin, rapid tests should continue to be offered free of charge, at least for part of the population, namely vulnerable customers at risk of complications.
MSSS spokesman Robert Maranda claims there is no change at this time and that the distribution of tests is continuing. So far, 42 million tests have been distributed to pharmacies across the province.
Prudence or bad planning?
Those millions of tests in stock are likely the result of a great deal of caution on the part of governments, estimates former president and director-general of the Montreal Agency for Health and Human Services, David Levine.
They may have calculated that the population would take a lot more from these test boxes than they actually took, but it was very difficult to judge. It probably made more sense to buy a larger quantity. I think it’s a security issue.
David Levine, former President and CEO of the Montreal Health and Social Services Agency
“For a politician who has to make health decisions in a situation of uncertainty and where the consequences of inaction can be very serious, it is better to be safe than sorry, even if it costs more, than being blamed enough have done,” adds Régis Blais, professor in the Department of Management, Evaluation and Health Policy at the School of Public Health at the Université de Montréal.
In his opinion, the population and the opposition in parliament would have cried much louder if the government had not ordered enough tests instead of too many. “Now who’s going to complain that we’ve ordered too many tests? Few people will go on the barricades about it,” he said.
Learn more
5 billion costs of contracts entered into by Public Services and Procurement Canada for the purchase of rapid diagnostic tests in the country
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada