Ford Wants You To Get A COVID-19 Test At Your Corner Pharmacy

Getting checked in the province could be about to become a whole lot easier. Premier Doug Ford said on Wednesday, June 3, that he wants COVID-19 testing in Ontario to be available in large pharmacies sooner rather than later. Ford made the comments at his daily media briefing.

When asked about U.S. pharmacy chain CVS Health's announcement that it was introducing and then increasing the number of test sites at drive-thru locations in New York, Ford suggested it's a good basis for Ontario to follow.

"We're in conversations right now with some of the largest pharmacies and just stay tuned over the next little while. We will be possibly rolling that out, if that comes to fruition,” Ford said on Wednesday.

"I think it's a good model," he added.

While he did not mention any specific names, talk of "the largest pharmacies" would seem to suggest that the Premier has his eyes on stores like Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexalls, which are spread around the province.

If this does indeed happen, it would represent the next big step in the expansion of testing in Ontario.

After all, it was only on May 14 that Health Minister Christine Elliot, who was alongside Ford on Wednesday, announced that testing guidelines were being expanded to include anyone with symptoms.

Since then, things have seemed to move at a lightning pace.

Just a week after that, Ford said that testing is now available to "everyone" in the province as the focus moves from checking those with severe symptoms to testing those with mild and even no symptoms at all.

And from last week, testing pop-up centres were starting to appear all over the province.

Starting in the Windsor area, these assessment centres are now springing up in Toronto, too, with the first one launching in Scarborough last Friday.

Meanwhile, on the same day that Ford was announcing asymptomatic people can and should look to get tested, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer admitted that the provincial advice on testing has been "confusing" for the public.

The province reported 338 new cases of the virus on Wednesday.