Health Minister Tyler Shandro. (Government of Alberta)

By David Opinko

Province spending $10-million on serology tests & studies for COVID-19

Jun 23, 2020 | 3:53 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Government of Alberta has announced a significant investment that will help to better understand COVID-19 and what it means for those who contract it.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro says they will be pumping $10-million into conducting an unspecified number of serology tests.

“It detects the presence of antibodies in a person’s blood, which can show us if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19 in the past. That shows us more about how the virus is spreading and how to best contain it.”

He adds that, since COVID-19 is still so new, there is a lot we do not yet know about it.

“We need to know how much immunity people have after they’ve been infected, if they can get infected again, etc. Serology testing will help us find out and contribute to the global evidence, which will help all jurisdictions moving forward.”

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Shandro clarifies that serology tests are different than throat swab tests, which are used to identify patients who are currently afflicted by the virus.

The government is also funding four voluntary public health studies that the Health Minister says will allow researchers to closely monitor and test a sample of Albertans.

Two of the studies will examine antibodies in children in Calgary and Edmonton.

A third will regularly test Albertans over the age of 45.

The final study will anonymously test random samples of blood that were collected for other purposes.

“Together, these four studies will give us a lot more information about how the virus is spreading,” says Shandro.

In Tuesday’s COVID-19 update, the province confirmed 45 new infections across Alberta, bringing the total to 7,781 to date. Of those, 532 cases are still active while 7,096 people have recovered.

There were only two more infections in the South Health Zone, which were both in Medicine Hat.

No additional deaths were reported as a result of the virus, meaning COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 153 Albertans.

The regional breakdown is as follows:

• Calgary zone – 5,218 cases, 230 active
  • 112 deaths
  • 158,548 tests
• South Zone – 1,290 cases, 22 active
  • 10 deaths
  • 26,929 tests
• Edmonton zone – 885 cases, 236 active
  • 14 deaths
  • 109,286 tests
• North zone – 282 cases, 36 active
  • 16 deaths
  • 28,647 tests
• Central zone – 89 cases, three active
  • One death
  • 27,586 tests

As for the breakdown for the South Health Zone, the province recently changed the way they display information on the geospatial map, which is how we get the information for this. Due to this change, some of the local numbers may be off from what we have previously reported.

• Brooks – 1,119 cases, three active, nine deaths
• Cardston County – 39 cases, nine active, one death
• Medicine Hat – 38 cases (two new), two active
• Lethbridge – 36 cases, three active
  • West Lethbridge – 14 cases, one active
  • South Lethbridge – 14 cases, zero active
  • North Lethbridge – eight cases, two active
• Cypress County – 21 cases, zero active
• County of Newell – 20 cases, zero active
• Fort Macleod – Nine cases, three active
• Lethbridge County – Three cases, two active
• M.D. of Taber – Two cases, zero active
• County of Forty Mile – Two cases, zero active