B.C. health authority's post about rapid test availability was 'gaslighting,' doctor says

Two COVID-19 rapid tests that were given to a motorist are displayed at a Fraser Health drive-thru pick up site in Surrey, B.C., on Thursday, January 20, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A family doctor in Vancouver is among those calling out a B.C. health authority's claim that rapid tests were widely available as the Omicron wave hit the province, calling it "revisionist history" and "gaslighting."

The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) – which, among other things, oversees the BC Centre for Disease Control – made the statement on Twitter Tuesday.

"A rapid response for rapid tests: Learn how PHSA staff stepped up to make rapid antigen tests widely available when the wave of Omicron hit B.C. in December and January," the post reads, linking to a story on the authority's website.

Dr. Anna Wolak says she re-read the post several times before commenting, stressing that her concern stems from her belief that an agency responsible for public health during a global pandemic has a responsibility to provide accurate information.

"The thing that really offended me with that tweet was when I first looked at it, I started doubting myself. I was like 'I swear they weren't available,' right? I had to ask my husband, I had to ask all sorts of people," she says. "I was offended by the fact that it seemed like revisionist history. It was like, 'No, no, it was not widely available.'"

As cases began to spike in B.C. in December, Wolak bought tests online. Her friend offered to mail her some from Texas, where they were being handed out for free. She watched as Facebook groups dedicated to crowdsourcing tests were created online, and she fielded inquiries from patients desperate to get their hands on a test. Online petitions demanding increased access were launched and gathered thousands of signatures.

All this was happening while other provinces like Quebec, Saskatchewan and Ontario were making free tests available at places ranging from pharmacies to public libraries to government-run liquor stores.

"I don't know what definition of widely available that was, but that wasn't it," she says.

Wolak wasn't alone in her outrage over the tweet. BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau was among the hundreds who replied with incredulous anger, as were a number people who said they had paid a premium to get their hands on tests.

 

In a statement, PHSA offered an apology for any confusion the post caused.

"The original language used to frame the story was poorly chosen. We have since updated that language and offered clarification tweets," it reads.

That clarification says, "we have updated the story to clarify that tests were first available at collection centres in December, then increasingly more widely available from January onward."

The story itself focuses on the "extraordinary effort" undertaken when testing capacity in B.C. was overwhelmed and the province pivoted from PCR testing to rapid tests amid hours-long line-ups at testing sites and skyrocketing case counts.

But Wolak says the story and the clarification tweets still aren't facing up to the truth of how scarce RATs were – even at testing sites – during the height of the Omicron wave.

"People were talking about the fact that they'd go up there, some of them would be rejected, but if you got a test you were given this measly one swab. And if you were going with, say, a sick child, they would turn you away because your child was the one who was sick and not you," she recalls.

By mid-January, in a move that Wolak describes as "adding insult to injury," B.C. changed its guidelines for who was eligible for any kind of test at a public clinic. At that point, most people experiencing symptoms were no longer deemed eligible, and instead told to isolate at home.

RAPID TESTS AVAILABLE TO ALL B.C. ADULTS IN MARCH 2022

British Columbia only made rapid tests available to be picked up at pharmacies in February, starting with those 70 and over. By March 23, they were available to those 18 and over. Those picking them up were required to show their personal health number and limited to one kit with five tests every 28 days. On April 11, those remaining conditions were eliminated.

Wolak says now, even as rapid tests are what she would describe as widely available, confusion remains.

"People don't know that they can get rapid tests," she says. 

Last week, Statistics Canada released the results of an online, crowdsourced survey on the use of rapid tests in Canada between December 2021 and March 2022.

Fifty per cent of respondents in B.C. – the highest rate in all the provinces and territories – reported wanting to take a test but not being able to access one. The rate was lowest in Saskatchewan, at just seven per cent.

B.C. respondents also reported having taken a rapid test at the lowest rate in the country, at 37 per cent. In Saskatchewan, it was 86 per cent.

"In late 2021 and early 2022, rapid test kits were not distributed to the public in British Columbia and instead were focused on use in high-risk settings. This was a different approach compared with other provinces, such as Saskatchewan, where rapid test kits were distributed to the public," the report from StatsCan notes.

With the sixth wave of COVID-19 underway, the ending of restrictions, and B.C.'s transition to once-a-week reporting on hospitalizations and deaths, Wolak says all communication coming from health authorities – even tweets – needs to be accurate.

"A lot of the other things that we used to use for navigating our risk factors and our responsibilities have gone by the wayside," she says.

"We need to be able to put our trust in the messaging from public health."