Local businesses ‘very frustrated’ by low supply of rapid antigen tests

There's high demand but low supply.

Local businesses are feeling “very frustrated” by the shortage of rapid COVID-19 antigen tests that can help keep businesses safe.

“Once you get an outbreak in your business, public health comes in and shuts you down, and that's the real cause for concern,” said Greg Durocher, president and CEO of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.

He said the Cambridge Chamber has been getting hundreds of calls and hundreds of emails from businesses about these test kits, so many it can't keep up.

“There's lots of them, especially in the hospitality industry and the essential workplaces that are going to be open. They're very frustrated because they don't know whether or not they can keep their workplaces safe during the holiday season,” Duroucher said. 

He said the Cambridge Chamber is waiting on around 100,000 orders of these test kits, but doesn't expect them to arrive until January next year.

“We started with Health Canada back in April 2021. There were millions of kits. We told them that this was going to get very popular. We've been going through nearly, up to, and some weeks 50,000 kits a week going out the door, and we've distributed over 700,000 since the beginning, so they knew that the need was there,” Duroucher said. 

He added the Cambridge Chamber warned Health Canada that millions of kits would be needed to keep things going.

Duroucher said this is very difficult for the Cambridge Chamber.

He said, “We are doing this for free on behalf of the government to get them out to workplaces only… these are simply for people to come into the workplace to make sure that they're COVID-free.”

Last week, the LCBO ran out of its supply of rapid test kits in under two days.