P.E.I.’s response to the recent COVID-19 outbreaks in Charlottetown and Summerside shattered testing records for the province and eclipsed daily testing counts of Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick during recent outbreaks.
Between Feb. 27 and March 2, a total of 11,068 swab tests was conducted; close to 3,000 of these were rapid molecular tests. The highest one-day total on March 1 saw 3,655 Islanders tested. This was higher than any one-day testing total recorded in Newfoundland and Labrador during its recent outbreak in February and in New Brunswick during the various outbreaks in that province throughout January and February.
P.E.I.’s high rates of testing, which included large numbers of asymptomatic individuals in the 14- to 29-year-old age group, appears to have allowed the province to determine that community spread of both outbreaks was limited. In many cases, Islanders in Summerside lined up for hours in order to receive a COVID-19 test, as had been urged by chief public health officer Dr. Heather Morrison.
Morrison announced a lifting of several public health restrictions on Wednesday, including opening schools across the province and allowing for the reopening of gyms and restaurants at reduced capacity.
The total number of swab tests delivered on March 1 is higher than any single-day testing total seen in Newfoundland and Labrador between Feb. 7 and 23 – the period of an outbreak linked to the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant of the virus.
Between Feb. 8 and Feb. 13, a period in which that province reported a total of 270 new cases, 7,028 tests were conducted in Newfoundland and Labrador, a number lower than the four-day total from Saturday to Tuesday in P.E.I.
Newfoundland and Labrador has three times the population of P.E.I.
In New Brunswick, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 23, the highest one-day total of tests occurred on Jan. 31, when 2,562 swab tests were conducted. The average number of tests during this period was 1,350.
Beginning Jan. 1 and ending Feb. 23 – the first day in which that province recorded zero cases – New Brunswick reported 827 positive cases. At least some of the cases involved the B.1.1.7 variant; January and February saw the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in that province since the start of the pandemic.
New Brunswick has a population five times larger than that of P.E.I.
On Wednesday, Morrison said P.E.I. tested around seven per cent of the Island’s population since Saturday.
At a glance
This is the total number of tests on P.E.I. since Saturday
Lab (PCR) Rapid (ID Now) Total
Feb. 27 1,455 1,240 2,695
Feb. 28 1,265 1,010 2,275
March 1 3,097 558 3,655
March 2 2,328 115 2,443
Stu Neatby is the political reporter for The Guardian. [email protected]. @stu_neatby