Published Thursday, September 24, 2020 7:50AM EDT
Last Updated Thursday, September 24, 2020 3:52PM EDT
The new guidance signals a complete reversal of provincial messaging over the summer, where Premier Doug Ford and others encouraged anyone who wanted a test to lineup and seek a test.
Ontario Health CEO Matt Anderson told reporters Thursday the move will free up testing capacity for those who really need it and those who queue up at an assessment centre who do not have any symptoms, no known contact with an identified case and are not part of a high risk group such as healthcare workers, cross-border workers or first responders will be turned away.
"We want to ensure we have the testing capacity for our priority populations. If you have no contact, no symptoms and are not part of a high risk setting, you're not getting a test now," he said. "Back in the spring this was our approach and we are going back to that model. If activity diminishes we would be able to go forward again."
Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said she is confident the move to restrict testing will not impact her ability to track the spread of the virus.
"When we opened up testing to anyone who wanted it, we didn’t find cases," she said. Later she stressed that anyone who receives a contact alert from the COVID Alert smartphone app would be considered a contact of a case and would be allowed to continue to proceed to testing under the new guidance.
Both stressed the move to alter the guidance does not mean that no asymptomatic people will be tested, it just means that the practice of what Anderson called "reassurance testing," where people with no known symptoms or connection to any other discovery of the virus seek a test for peace of mind, will end.
"What we need to do is focus on symptomatic people and their contacts and outbreaks, in order to get the backlog down," Yaffe said.