High volume of people presenting at local COVID-19 testing centres

Record Staff

The two COVID-19 Designated Screening Centres (CDD) in the Estrie region have been particularly busy in recent days.
A press release from the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS stated that since Monday, the number of people wanting to be tested has increased significantly. At the CDDs in Sherbrooke and Granby, medical teams have had to contend with a demand three to four times higher than what they were used to seeing in the last few weeks.
For that reason, wait times at the CDDs in Sherbrooke and Granby are longer than usual for the population. The teams are working to find solutions to continue offering the best possible service to the population while reducing waiting times.
According to Dr. Geneviève Baron, medical consultant at the Estrie Public Health Department,
This increase coincides with the circulation of a virus similar to a cold that affects young people. Because the symptoms of this virus resemble those of COVID-19, this may explain why more families are rightly presenting with CDD. Baron said people are doing the right thing – getting tested when the situation calls for it.
Faced with the recent influx, the medical teams have been trying to find efficient ways of doing things in order to optimize the accessibility of CDDs. Yesterday at the Sherbrooke CDD, screening was done in an outdoor tent to increase the pace.
The highly fluctuating volume of traffic from one day to the next has been a challenge for local health authorities with regards to human resources planning.

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