If the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) laid all of the COVID-19 swabs they have tested since March of last year end-to-end, they would stretch from London to Windsor.
The hospital network announced on Tuesday it has surpassed the one million mark for the number of COVID-19 tests processed at its facility.
“As a team, we’re not just proud of the throughput we’ve accomplished, we’re also proud of what that represents,” LHSC Chief Laboratory Officer Dr. Mike Kadour said in a statement. “Behind every test is a person that is waiting on critical information about their health. Our work not only provides that health data in a timely manner to individuals, it also helps to inform at an aggregate level, important public health decisions aimed at ensuring the safety of our broader communities. To have made that kind of contribution more than a million times feels particularly meaningful for us.”
The hospital's pathology and laboratory medicine (PaLM) team began processing COVID-19 swabs on March 18, 2020, just one week after the global pandemic was declared. At that time the lab was processing 50 tests per day. That grew to 3,000 a day within five months and now more than a year later the lab has the capacity to process up to 10,000 tests per day.
The team also regularly meets a 24-hour turn-around time for COVID-19 testing results and does routine screening on all positive samples for variants of concern.
“The innovation, expertise, and adaptability within our teams has truly resulted in the delivery of exceptional service to our communities during this incredibly challenging time," added Kadour.
Since the start of the pandemic, PaLM has expanded its regional collaboration to include seven public health units, long term care and retirement homes, and primary care providers.
