Premier Ford Wants to See More Testing

Thursday, 21 May 2020 13:52

Premier Doug Ford wants to see more COVID-19 testing for people without symptoms, this includes, truckers, taxi drivers, factory workers and much more.

ONTARIO - Premier Doug Ford is very frustrated with the lack of COVID-19 testing lately.

The Province has not reached it's capacity for testing all week. We had three days in a row, where the numbers were under 10,000, with the lowest day just over 5,000 tests. The Province is capable of doing around 18,000 tests a day.

Premier Ford says he is extremely frustrated with those numbers.

"I was sitting at the health table this morning and what I have asked and what I want because there is a difference between what I want and what is going to happen and hopefully it is going to happen because I have confidence in Public Health and I have confidence in Ontario Health. What I want is I want to see people being tested and if you have symptoms please go to an assessment centre, I want to repeat that, if you have symptoms please go to an assessment centre because we don't seem to see the same traffic at the assessment centres right now."

Ford says he wants to see more random testing.

"I want to see truckers tested, I want to see taxi drivers tested, I want to make sure we keep testing long term care homes, the frontline healthcare workers. We want to go into the areas of the automotive sector and start testing people in the automotive sector across the Province. I want to see food processing plants being tested, that's what I want and I am confident is going to happen."

Ford says he can't put an exact date on when this testing will happen, however he promises the testing will be ramped up and is hoping more announcements will be coming next week.

"We can't just be testing people with symptoms, we have to start going to the broader public and start testing as many people as possible, asymptomatic people and until we do that, in my opinion, and I am no medical expert, I've said that a thousand times but until we do that, we can't get our hands around the whole system."

Ford says we are going to get this done.

"I have confidence, am I frustrated, yeah I'm frustrated, but I have confidence in the team, they are working hard, they are doing everything they can, we will hit those numbers, I will be like an 800 pound gorilla on their backs every single day if I have to until we see those numbers go up."

You can listen to the Premier's remarks below.