An Alberta health worker handles a throat swab used for COVID-19 testing. The province's integrated health-care system and the time health authorities had to prepare for the pandemic allowed Alberta to perform a high number of tests, according to a U of A expert.
Photo: Alberta Health Services via Twitter
As of mid-April, Alberta laboratories had tested 77,316 people for COVID-19-about 20 per cent of the 422,200 tests carried out across Canada to that point.
Throughout the early spring, Alberta's two provincial public health labs in Calgary and Edmonton have been running almost 24/7 (6 a.m. to 2 a.m.), and with more than 4,000 laboratory staff, Alberta has the capacity to do almost 8,000 tests per day. "There are no weekends and no time off," says Michael Mengel, chair of laboratory medicine and pathology at the University of Alberta and north sector medical director for Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL). "Everybody is working extra hours."
To reach and sustain that volume, the universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge have collaborated with APL to share critical lab supplies, adds Mengel, and there has been a monumental co-ordination of staff, equipment and supplies.