Alberta Wants People Without Symptoms To Get Tested Anyways Now
The province is making huge progress and is stepping up their laboratory game. Testing in Alberta is now open to everyone, whether they have symptoms or not, as total case numbers plummet. You can finally quell that paranoia over whether you have COVID-19 because you coughed once last week.
On Tuesday, June 2, Alberta announced their daily updates through their website. They also said that anyone can get tested, even those without COVID-19 symptoms.
"Testing is now available to any person without symptoms who wants to be tested," they wrote. "This gives us more information on the prevalence of COVID-19 in Alberta by providing a point-in-time assessment of whether a person has COVID-19."
They wrote that they're doing this in order to "determine how well our public health measures are working" and to better trace the spread of the virus.
However, just because you can get tested doesn't mean you'll get priority for testing. Those first in line are people who are experiencing symptoms, close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and workers or residents of outbreak sites.
Other priority people are workers and residents of long term care, patients admitted to continuing care, and more.
Earlier, Alberta expanded its testing to include anyone with symptoms. Now they're going one further by testing anyone at all.
Meanwhile, the total positive cases in Alberta dipped below 400, landing at 377 at the time of writing. There were just 13 new cases, which were outpaced by the 36 people who officially recovered. And for the second day in a row, there were no deaths.
That makes a total of 6,537 recoveries out of the 7,057 positive cases recorded so far. That's nearly a 93% recovery rate.
In the time between their last update on Monday, June 1, and the publication of this article, Alberta wrote that they processed 3,227 new tests. If you want to get tested, you can book an appointment online through their self-assessment tool.
Earlier, B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry warned that taking a test before developing symptoms could lead to false negatives.
However, if you're well informed and you'd like to get a test, the province is welcoming you to give it a try.