Ontario lab little-used thus far in Manitoba’s COVID fight By: Larry Kusch Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 4, 2020

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This article was published 03/09/2020 (1477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister’s promise in April to boost Manitoba’s COVID-19 laboratory test capacity to more than 3,000 tests per day remains a work in progress.

And with the school year beginning Tuesday, and flu season on the horizon, the province is likely going to need all the testing capacity it can get.

On April 28, Pallister announced the government had formed a partnership with Ontario-based Dynacare to significantly boost Manitoba’s testing ability. The private-sector partner was to be able to process up to 2,000 tests per day before the end of summer, the government said at the time.

However, according to statistics obtained by the Free Press, Dynacare handled relatively few novel coronavirus tests for Manitoba in the first three months of the contract, although it’s ramped up its efforts more recently.

With Manitoba-owned Cadham Provincial Laboratory able to handle 1,000-plus test samples per day, the province’s test capacity was expected to be “well over 3,000 tests per day,” the government said this spring.

However, this week, Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer, pegged Manitoba’s test capacity at somewhat below that. He said it could reach 3,000 tests on some days, but not on a sustained basis.

“Certainly, 2,500 is something we have the ability to do daily right now,” he told a news conference.

According to statistics obtained from the provincial government through freedom of information legislation, Dynacare conducted a daily average of 164 COVID-19 tests for Manitoba from April 28 to July 27.

On 11 separate days during that period, it conducted fewer than 10 tests, and on four of those days, it performed none at all. It also performed more than 200 tests on 25 different days, with the highest total, 459, coming June 22. The provincial total that day was 581.

But while Dynacare occasionally handled the bulk of tests on a given day in the first three full months of its contract, the daily stats show it often did a small proportion of the work. For example, in the three days from June 12-14, the company performed only 269 of the 2,125 tests that were completed.

Although the volume of work being handled by Dynacare from April to July fluctuated, it wasn’t because of any issues on the company’s end, said spokesman Mark Bernhardt.

“We tested all of the samples we received from the provincial government during that time, so it was not a matter of capacity on our end,” he said in an email. At the time, samples were being sent to Dynacare’s Brampton, Ont., lab for testing.

In August, Dynacare began testing samples at a facility in Winnipeg, and its volumes rose sharply. Last month, the company processed 20,904 test samples, averaging 674 per day, and roughly 44 per cent of the provincial total.

“Dynacare was able to secure (through our own supply network) a very scarce but high throughput testing equipment,” Bernhardt wrote. “It was as a result of securing this equipment that Dynacare was able to start offering COVID-19 testing in Manitoba as of August.”

NDP Leader Wab Kinew wonders whether taxpayers have been getting a raw deal in the government’s dealings with Dynacare.

The fact there were many days when the company performed few tests early on begs the question as to whether the government included performance standards in the contract, he said. On 26 different days from April 28 to July 27, Dynacare conducted fewer than 100 tests.

The NDP has asked the government for a copy of the contract, but it’s been denied. A government spokeswoman said Friday the contract will be posted on the province’s proactive disclosure website “in the next few days.”

Most troubling for Kinew is the fact the company doesn’t seem to be ready to perform the 2,000 tests per day the government touted in the spring.

“We’re heading back to school next week. I imagine there’s going to be a big increase in demand for testing. Kids just being in proximity to each other, there’s going to be more runny noses. There’s going to be more little coughs and sniffles. So parents are going to start taking their children in increased numbers to the testing locations,” the NDP leader said.

“And right now, it doesn’t look like the government has an adequate plan to supply those tests.”

Michelle Gawronsky, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, said the fact the province has not yet reached its COVID-19 testing capacity goal shows it has a lot of work to do.

The union, which represents workers at Cadham, said the government should have expanded public testing capacity rather than enrich a private company in Ontario.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Larry Kusch
Legislature reporter

Larry Kusch didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life until he attended a high school newspaper editor’s workshop in Regina in the summer of 1969 and listened to a university student speak glowingly about the journalism program at Carleton University in Ottawa.

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