The Official Opposition is calling for the expansion of rapid testing to include schools, saying the pandemic of last year is not what we are experiencing now.
Education Critic Carla Beck says there have been 67 school outbreaks in the last two weeks and we are now dealing with variants of COVID-19 that are more transmissible and some experts are saying they have a higher mortality rate and they seem to impact young people more.
Because children can have the virus and be asymptomatic, Beck believes there could be transmission in schools that hasn’t been caught by contact tracing.
Rapid testing kits were made available to Saskatchewan from the federal government in December.
Beck says last month the Premier admitted fault in not having the tests deployed more quickly and said they would be available for schools, but that hasn’t happened yet.
The NDP believes the schools need the tests and they need the support to do the testing to avoid more people getting sick and further lockdowns down the road.

At Thursday’s COVID-19 update, Health Minister Paul Merriman said first, school divisions need a provider to do the testing.
“As far as I understand there is a tender out right now to be able to contract that within the school division but we certainly are working with them to be able to manage them through that process. If they do want the tests and they have the providers set up and all of that, we would be more than happy to provide them.”