School boards across the province are expected to roll out COVID-19 testing in at least five per cent of schools by next week.
The directive comes from Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who says school boards and local health units will have input on which schools are selected for testing.
Windsor-Essex Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, says he's not convinced asymptomatic testing will help identify cases early, but he's willing to work with school boards to get a plan in place.
Ahmed says the Ministry of Health is asking for the testing as well.
"We will be working closely with our school board partners to get some kind of system in place of how we would achieve that target and, also, to give the level of comfort that people are looking for with this type of testing," he says.
Ahmed says none of the testing will be mandatory.
"You have to recognize that this would be voluntary testing and you are talking about little children that need to be swabbed just on a voluntary basis," he says. "So I'm not sure what would be the uptake of that. When it comes to someone with symptoms, they have to go to the assessment centre to get tested."
Ahmed is not sure just how many parents will agree to have their children tested.
"For a child who doesn't have any symptoms and if they want to get tested, what would be the uptake of that? We'll have to have that discussion," he says. "We'll have to see how practical it is and if we have the rest of the system in place, we'll have to see what will be the uptake in the community too."
The new COVID-19 testing directive goes into effect on Monday for most school boards including those in Windsor-Essex.