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Ontario Investing $1.07 Billion To Expand COVID Testing and Tracing

The provincial government is investing more than $1 billion to expand COVID-19 testing and contact tracing in Ontario.

Officials say the investment will enhance efforts to quickly identify, manage and prevent coronavirus outbreaks.

The government is also investing $30 million “to prevent and manage outbreaks in priority sectors”, including the province’s long-term care homes, retirement homes and schools.

These investments are part of the province’s comprehensive plan to prepare the health system for a second wave of COVID-19.

“We’ve put over $1 billion on the table to help track, trace and isolate cases of COVID-19 through the largest and most robust pandemic testing initiative in the country,” said Premier Ford. “By ramping up our daily testing capacity to 50,000 tests and closely monitoring our long-term care homes and schools, we can quickly respond to any outbreaks and surges and stop the spread of this deadly virus in its tracks.”

Expanding testing and case and contact management

The province says a critical part of Ontario’s COVID-19 fall preparedness plan is encouraging people to continue to adhere to foundational public health measures and monitor public health trends carefully.

“As part of our plan to ensure the health system’s readiness for future waves of COVID-19, our government is dramatically expanding our testing capacity, launching more testing locations and adding more case and contact management resources to trace and isolate new cases,” said Minister Elliott. “In doing so, we will also support long-term care homes, schools and hospitals to effectively prevent, track and contain outbreaks of COVID-19.”

The government feels Ontario has maintained adherence to public health measures and established a strong foundation for testing and case and contact management by:

Building on those efforts, the government now says Ontario will strengthen public health measures and continue to expand testing and case and contact management through the following:

To measure success in these efforts, Ontario will track progress against the following:

The province has also released new testing guidance to help focus public resources on where they are needed the most.

Quickly Identify, Manage and Prevent Outbreaks

With the flu and cold season approaching and a potential second wave of COVID-19, Ontario will invest $30 million to build on its efforts to rapidly identify and contain any COVID-19 outbreaks.

To date, Ontario has worked to improve outbreak prevention and management by:

Ontario will continue to improve outbreak management through the following:

As Ontario works to contain and prevent outbreaks, the province will measure success using the following criteria:

The province believes theirs COVID-19 fall preparedness plan, Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19, will help the province quickly identify, prevent and respond to any scenario in order to protect communities.

They say the Keeping Ontarians Safe plan will:

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