COVID-19 testing sites opening up in St. Albert for people who aren't symptomatic comes as welcome news to city councillors.
Residents in St. Albert will now have access to asymptomatic testing for COVID-19 at pharmacies owned by Shoppers Drug Mart and its parent company Loblaw.
As of Sept. 1, asymptomatic testing will be available at all 234 locations after the province's chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw asked all teachers and staff to get tested before going back to school. The expansion increases the province’s testing capacity by 3,000 to 4,000 tests a day, Hinshaw said, and would serve half or more of Alberta’s teachers and school staff. For children, testing is only recommended if they have symptoms, which can be arranged through Alberta Health Services (AHS).
People with no symptoms can get swabbed at all pharmacies at the Real Canadian Superstore, Independent Foods, Extra Foods, City Market and No Frills. This is in addition to the 50 Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaw pharmacies in Real Canadian Superstore locations that had already offered asymptomatic testing, though no sites were located in St. Albert at the time.
Before this announcement, St. Albert city council passed a motion unanimously on Aug. 17 to advocate for the province to establish one or more testing sites in St. Albert and to prepare an implementation plan for an eventual vaccination site.
That motion encompassed a recommendation from the city’s COVID-19 Recovery Task Force on Aug. 5 to ensure residents have easy access to testing and vaccinations when it becomes available.
“It's excellent – honestly it’s great news,” said Mayor Cathy Heron.
Before, residents had to drive at least 30 minutes to get tested outside city limits, with or without symptoms. The goal is to catch positive cases before they become symptomatic, Heron said.
“If you don't have symptoms, and it's a 45-minute drive, nobody's gonna go ... so this will increase testing in our area, which may lead to more active cases."
Coun. Ken MacKay, who brought the motion forward to council, was also pleased to see asymptomatic testing sites open within city limits.
However, there is still a need for a testing site for people who are experiencing symptoms, and planning needs to be done for when a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, he said.
“I think this is fantastic that it’s happening,” he said of asymptomatic testing, noting the province’s roll-out of a vaccine could happen in a community setting.
“If we’re setting (a site) up and we’re ready to go, I think that’s very proactive.”
Heron said when a vaccination becomes available, the city wants to make sure it’s easily accessible to senior residents and anyone who wants to get the vaccine. Specifically, easy access will be important for people who are employed in sectors where working from home isn’t possible, like teachers, transit operators and RCMP officers.
“Because if we have isolated symptoms of COVID-19, let's say in our RCMP detachment, that's really gonna be problematic. So those that really need to get out and work, they need to have access to vaccinations,” Heron said.
Testing is only for people who do not have symptoms of COVID-19. Anyone who is sick is asked not to go into pharmacies, but book a test through Alberta Health Services instead via www.ahs.ca/covid.
Where can I go in St. Albert?
This news means St. Albert residents without symptoms will have at least four locations to get a throat swab within city limits, including the three Shoppers Drug Mart locations off St. Albert Trail, and the Real Canadian Superstore near Anthony Henday Drive. All locations should have testing available by Sept. 1.
The Shoppers Drug Mart in Mission Hill Plaza started offering asymptomatic testing on Aug. 20, with the two other locations following shortly after that, said Ashley Davidson, associate store owner.
The Mission Hill Plaza location has seen a big uptick in asymptomatic testing since starting the program in St. Albert, Davidson said, with teachers and staff looking to get tested before school starts. She said she's hoping to ramp up testing at that location to between 100 to 150 tests per week.
"It's such a good thing to be able to offer this to our community members. There's definitely demand out there, people want to make sure that they're doing all they can to be safe and to keep others around them safe," Davidson said.
Appointments need to be booked over the phone beforehand with 15-minute slots available, and people getting tested need to pass a COVID-19 prescreening first, she said. Right now, people can expect to wait between seven to 10 days for an appointment as the store ramps up capacity.
Once you go in, you'll be taken into a testing room to get the throat swab, which should take about five minutes to do. Rooms are cleaned and sanitized in between appointments. The samples are then sent for processing at provincial labs, and the pharmacy will call you with the results once they come in.
There have been 229,223 tests completed in the Edmonton Zone, which is 33 per cent of the provincial number, according to AHS. An AHS spokesperson told the Gazette testing numbers could not be broken down by specific communities.
As of Monday, the number of positive COVID-19 cases in St. Albert stood at 14.
