After swabbing the floors of several Ottawa long-term care homes for more than a year, scientists say sampling floors for the COVID-19 virus can help detect an outbreak days before it happens.
Aaron Hinz worked with a team across Ontario to study thousands of swabs taken from floors at facilities in Ottawa, Toronto and Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Fralick said the floor is the best predictor because it's pretty much a "sink, which soaks up the virusThen at a lab at Carleton University, researchers used a reverse transcriptase PCR test — like the ones used to swab people's noses for COVID-19 — to analyze the swabs for presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness in people.
In some homes, he said nearly 100 per cent of swabs came back positive during an outbreak, meaning there must have been a lot of sick patients in that area of the LTC home shedding the virus.A researcher swabs the floor at a dining hall in Extendicare's New Orchard Lodge in Ottawa. That could help ensure the continuation of social activities for other residents, as well as family visits during outbreaks in areas where little COVID is found on the floors, he said.
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