NEWS RELEASE
ROYAL VICTORIA REGIONAL HEALTH CENTRE
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Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) is reminding people of the new COVID-19 testing criteria introduced by the provincial government last Friday.
The new criteria preserves publicly funded PCR testing for high-risk individuals and people working in high-risk settings, along with vulnerable populations, including:
- Symptomatic people who fall into one of the following groups:
- Hospitalized patients
- Patient-facing health-care workers
- Staff, residents, essential care providers, and visitors in hospitals and congregate living settings, including long-term care, retirement homes, First Nation elder care lodges, group homes, shelters, hospices, temporary foreign worker settings, and correctional institutions
- Outpatients for whom COVID-19 treatment is being considered
- Underhoused or homeless
- People who are from First Nation, Inuit, and Métis communities and individuals travelling into these communities for work
- Symptomatic elementary and secondary students and education staff who have received a PCR self-collection kit through their school
- People on admission/transfer to or from hospital or congregate living settings
- High-risk contacts and asymptomatic/symptomatic people in the context of confirmed or suspected outbreaks in high-risk settings, including hospitals, long-term care, retirement homes, other congregate living settings and institutions, and other settings as directed by the local public health unit
- Individuals, and one accompanying caregiver, with written prior approval for out-of-country medical services from the General Manager, OHIP
- Asymptomatic testing in hospital, long-term care, retirement homes and other congregate living settings and Institutions as per provincial guidance and/or Directives
If you have COVID symptoms, the advice is to presume you are positive and do not seek testing. If you are fully vaccinated or under the age of 12, you and all members or your household must isolate for five days. Isolation can end after five days only if your symptoms have improved for at least 24 hours. If you are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or immunocompromised the isolation period is 10 days.
If you were exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and fully vaccinated with no symptoms, self-monitor for 10 days and do not visit any high-risk individuals or high-risk settings for 10 days. If you are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or immunocompromised, isolate for 10 days. If the person who tested positive is a member of your household, isolate for the period of their isolation.
For more information, visit Ontario.ca/exposed.
Most individuals with a positive result from a rapid antigen test will no longer be required to confirm their diagnosis with a PCR or rapid molecular test.
RVH continues to operate its very busy testing clinic in Barrie at 29 Sperling Dr. The clinic is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Appointments can be booked through RVH’s website or by calling 705-797-3120 (select 2). The current turnaround time for results is less than 24 hours.
“We understand the desire to confirm a COVID result with PCR testing and, until Sunday, we are honouring any previously booked appointments,” says Stella Johnson, Operations Director, Emergency Department & COVID Clinics. “It’s very important that we preserve testing capacity for the most high-risk individuals. Same day and future bookings are available for those who meet testing criteria.”
For information on the current testing criteria, visit ontario.ca/covidtest.
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