The Windsor Essex County Health Unit will start random testing for COVID-19 in Windsor this weekend.
The health unit will be set up with a drive-thru test facility in the parking lot of Silver City on Walker Road in Windsor between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Anyone 12 years old or older can be tested as long as they have a health card and provide contact information to the health unit.
"This will tell us the people through a self-selection bias of going and making an effort to go to the assessment centre and get tested because either they have a concern or they feel for whatever reason they want to get tested. The idea behind these drive-thru testing is not to identify those people who are really interested in getting the test done but have a broader mix of population, everyone and anyone. That way when we use this statistical analysis based on the sample size, we can say with some kind of certainty if we are looking at a general population what does it look like," said Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Medical Officer of Health for Windsor Essex.
The health unit expects to test around 1,200 people through this drive-thru setting over the weekend. It also plans to set up similar testing sites throughout all the municipalities in Essex County.
Dr. Ahmed said they will be looking at the data very closely, particularly how many asymptomatic people test positive for the virus.
"What has shown in the long-term care and retirement homes in our region, where we tested more than 4,000 people, 4,000 people is a lot of people, so we tested 4,000 people, residents and we had 0.9 per cent positivity in the asymptomatic individuals in all these homes," said Dr. Ahmed.
To date, 16,734 residents in Windsor and Essex County have been tested for COVID-19, 1,066 people are waiting for their test results. Results are expected within 24-48 hours of being done however some are taking up to 4-5 days. The health unit will be in contact with all people who test positive within 24 hours of receiving the results.
Only people with symptoms will be required to self-isolate after getting tested.