‘High number’ of people in Sask. don’t know they have COVID-19

Hundreds of people every day in Saskatchewan are finding out they have COVID-19, but it’s believed there are even more who don’t know.

Scott Livingstone, the CEO of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, believes there is a high number of people in the community who are infected with the virus who don’t know. One of the reasons he believes that is the high test positivity rate.

“Even though the testing might drop down to 2,000 or 2,300 in a day, when we’re seeing 300 cases on 2,000 tests, that’s not a good sign,” said Livingstone.

On Friday, there were 312 new cases and 2,561 tests done, which results in a test positivity rate of just over 12 per cent. Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer, has said before that he would like to see a rate below five per cent.

Livingstone said the test positivity rate is something officials watch closely because it can tell them what they might be seeing in weeks to come.

He also believes there are people in the community who don’t know they’re positive because a large number of patients coming to the hospital for treatment only get their first COVID-19 test and positive confirmation when they’re at the hospital.

“That’s one of the indications of widespread uncontrolled COVID activity, and that’s the situation we’re facing today,” said Livingstone.

Testing capacity has been maintained through the pandemic, according to Livingstone, and it has been prioritized during the pandemic. He explained PCR testing has been restricted to people who have symptoms or a positive rapid test because of the high volume of tests they’re being asked to do.

Livingstone said that’s also why the health authority is pushing the “test to protect” strategy which gets rapid tests out of 1,900 organizations. He said the SHA already has sent out more than one million tests.

“And that is going to continue to expand throughout the next phases of the pandemic so people can do their own testing at home as well as businesses will be able to do that as well,” said Livingstone.