B.C.’s Seniors Advocate wants rapid testing inside long-term care homes, but the Provincial Health Officer doesn’t think it will work.

Isobel MacKenzie says care home staff should be regularly tested at the beginning of their shift via rapid testing, which have the ability to yield COVID-19 results in as little as 15 minutes.

“We would catch staff who are not showing any symptoms but are shedding the virus,” she said.” We could be picking up staff member who doesn’t recognize they’re showing symptoms or they’re one of these cases who is asymptomatic they’re never going show symptoms and we’re gonna find them before they have the opportunity to spread the virus in the care home.”

But Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry says in order for that to work, they would need to test every staff member every day.

“Yes, they certainly do it in some sectors for short periods of time but the yield and the volume of testing that that would require is not at the point where it would be helpful for us instead of the regular screening that we are doing every day,” she said on Monday.

Henry also noted that there are not enough test kits available to do such testing in British Columbia.

“It is not what is going to solve our issue, because the tests have faults and limitations,” she added. “We had a lot of really high hopes for some of these rapid tests but, what they’re showing is, that period of time where people are sometimes most infectious, just before they start to show symptoms, is also the period of time when the tests work least well.”

As of Monday, there are 970 active cases of COVID-19 in long-term care homes, the majority in the Lower Mainland. That accounts for just over 13 per cent of the total active case load.

The BC Care Providers have also been calling for routine COVID-19 testing in care homes, which CEO Terry Lake says could prevent nursing homes from having to completely lock down when a case is discovered.