January 10, 2022 – Between the disaster that is the EOHU and traditional News Media in Cornwall, the availability and information regarding CoVid testing kits is a SCANDAL.
The current Eastern Ontario Health Unit web page says there’s nothing happening with rapid testing, yet the traditional news outlets are reporting that kits ARE available this week and that the Cornwall Square Mall (WTF?), is in charge of distribution with a ticketing system, but real information is sorely lacking.
So here’s the best information available…
There will be three pop-ups at the Cornwall Square this week scheduled for: Thursday, January 13th, Friday, January 14th, and Saturday, January 15th.
Tickets are supposed to be given out (first-come ~ first-served) on Tuesday, January 11th between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (all told there are 3,000 tickets available)
The distribution locations will be located on the exterior north side of Cornwall Square (not the southwest corner as shown in the S-F photo)… but look for signage.
And here’s what you get (if it’s the RapidGen)…
– Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Test Kit (5-Pack)
– 5-Pack of Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Tests (Nasal or Nasopharyngeal swabs)
– Each Rapid Test Kit Contains:
– 5 x Test cassettes
– 5 x Individually packed swabs
– 5 x individually packed buffers
– 5 x tubes and nozzles
– 1 x Tube stand
Good luck, and good health to all.
CY Mann – Cornwall Ontario
The Ministry of Health and Public Health Canada (the 2 iniators of the kit giveaway), were offering 3000 test kits, on Tuesday 11 January 22,.
Yet the set up at the Cornwall Square, where 3,000 people would thus be expected to show, had only 2 agents available to check ID’s, and collect the personal iinformation and phone numbers, then enter data and give out claim tickets.
Hence the snail’s pace for processing and moving people out of the 25 degree below zero weather.
A big shoutout and THANK YOU to those workers sitting at 2 lone computers for hours without a moment to even look around… Congratulations for your good work.
After an hour and a half for some, in minus 25 C temperatures, it was galling to exit into a virtually empty and warm mall that could easily have accommodated the outdoor line, and not disturbed mall business.
People could have lined up in the mall, and been directed into the same hallway they were made to enter from outside.– sparing everyone the frozen toes, numb fingers and the demoralizing shivering.
A sensible point person should have been delegated with the authority to make that small change, knowing full well and far in advance that the coldest day of the season was upon us.
The understaffed frontline employees however maintained their composure and did a sparkling job.
With 3000 free CoVid test kits supposedly on offer, and just a one day event to reserve one, the lineup outside the Cornwall Square was over an hour in -25 degree C. weather (the coldest day of the season), yet barely 1000 tickets were handed out (1 “magic ticket” per single kit).
And today — the first of three days to redeem a ticket — less than 200 kits are being handed out…!?!??!
Just who is in charge here?
… Ontario Ministry of Health?
… Public Health Canada?
… the EOHU? or,
… GOD HELP US, the Cornwall Square (aka Weaving Baskets Group)?
Who’s going to make this right?
Bless the crew that worked the frontline …but seriously, is this the state of public health in Cornwall, have we now officially been declared a backwater of beggars?