“As many countries reduce their testing, the WHO is receiving less and less information about transmission and sequencing,” Center Director General Adanom Gebregesus told a news conference at the UN headquarters in Geneva. “This makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution.”
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Bill Rodriguez, chief executive of FIND, a global aid team working with the WHO to expand access to testing, said “test rates have plummeted by 70 to 90 percent”. “We have an unprecedented ability to know what is going on. The story goes on under the ad “But today, because the trials were the first victim of a global decision to leave our alert, we are becoming blind to what is happening with this virus,” he said. 2: 07COVID-19: China Beijing launches massive tests as lockdown fears rise COVID-19: China Beijing launches mass tests as lockdown fears rise
Experts call for better COVID tests in Canada
Experts say Canada needs to develop a robust system to detect COVID-19 activity in the absence of large-scale PCR testing, which has ultimately led to inaccurate official case measurements. Trending Stories
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The story goes on under the ad Since the Omicron variant was released in the winter, provinces and regions have restricted access to gold standard PCR tests, citing a lack of capacity to keep up with demand and the need to free up healthcare resources. Many people have since relied on results from rapid antigen tests, but are less reliable at detecting the Omicron variant nor reporting and monitoring how PCR tests are performed. Experts say there needs to be a better way to inform people about COVID-19 activity in their communities.
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Dr Caroline Colijn, a mathematician and epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University, said there were “too many infections” in Canada right now to extend access to PCR tests to everyone to find out the true number of infections. In the absence of PCR testing, many provinces rely on wastewater data to determine COVID case trends. Colijn said wastewater data is an important source of information that can be made public without compromising anyone’s private medical data and can help communities understand the prevalence of COVID-19. But like PCR and rapid testing, he said it has its limitations. 1:47 USA FDA Approves COVID-19 Breath Test, Some Canadian Researchers Want to See It Brought Here He noted that there are many factors that could alter sewage signals, such as rainfall, temperature, and different variants, leaving different sequences in the water, resulting in less accurate COVID-19 case estimates. The story goes on under the ad Colijn said it expects a comprehensive system that integrates wastewater data, along with PCR and rapid testing, in a way designed to give a more accurate picture of how much COVID-19 is in a population and to alert people to the risk. virus infection. (Report by Emma Farge and Jennifer Rigby · Edited by Frank Jack Daniel) With files from the Canadian Press
