Rapid Antigen Screening Kits

Workplace Rapid Screening Kits for Businesses in Brantford-Brant County with less than 150 employees

How to order your kits

  1. Please email alex@brcc.ca with the name of your company, contact information, the number of employees you will be testing, and how many kits you are looking to order.

  2. You will need to assign a Screening Supervisor Designate, who will be the contact person for your business, but please ensure you forward all email correspondence to them.  This Designate is also responsible for reporting results on a WEEKLY basis.

  3. If you have multiple businesses, please choose an individual time/date for EACH business as we need to track all businesses separately.

What you need to know before you arrive

Please READ and SIGN the PASP (Provincial Antigen Screening Program) form. By signing this Government of Ontario form, you are agreeing to submit your employee results on a weekly basis.  Please bring a printed copy of the completed form with you.

Reporting your results

In order to participate in the Workplace Self Screening program, all participants must agree to report the results as soon as employees have been tested OR on a WEEKLY BASIS.

  • Your Screening Supervisor Designate will be responsible for reporting all results.
  • Results can only be submitted through the online portal.
  • Results are shared with Health Canada and the Ministry of Health Ontario.

PLEASE POST YOUR RESULTS HERE

Please DO NOT drop into the office OR call us to set up the appointment.  If you have any questions, please contact alex@brcc.ca with your name, questions, and phone number, and we will get back to you. 

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the Rapid Screening Tests

At this time, you CANNOT give kits to anyone. They are ONLY for use with your employees that are frequently coming to the workplace. You also cannot screen anyone else other than employees coming to the workplace, this is essential as reporting presumptive positives or inconclusive results may call into question your ability/authority to do so. Employees have the right to refuse, but when they comply that is consent, to collect and report the data.

The Ministry of Health recommends that Rapid Antigen testing only be used on those employees who have not been double vaccinated.  Those employees who have had 1 vaccine or have not been vaccinated should be regularly screened twice a week.

These are highly accurate in the range of 90% accurate, however, there are circumstances where they may show a false positive or false negative. In particular, this is why NO ONE SHOWING SYMPTOMS should be screened using these tests, as a false negative result might put the organization in a compromising position.

NO, in fact, it should be recognized that anyone showing symptoms must be kept OUT of the workplace and must not be allowed to return until Local Public Health provides a confirmed Negative result from a diagnostic PCR Test.

It is allergy season and people are experiencing symptoms like COVID-19, should we avoid screening people that may be experiencing allergy symptoms, or should we screen them regardless? Again, anyone showing symptoms that are similar to COVID-19, could in fact be infectious and should not be screened and diverted directly to public health for a PCR assessment.

While we recognize some symptoms can resemble allergies, the risk to the workplace is not worth ignoring.

The screen pad and vial (with the swab and buffering agent in) are considered hazardous waste. Some businesses may have the ability to dispose of this but failing that the Chamber has a disposal bin for you to bring your waste when refilling your order.

Rapid Antigen Screening is a nasal swab and not evasive. The requirement is the swab must be inserted into each nostril for 5 to 7 seconds 2 cm (1 inch) inside the nasal while ensuring the inside of the nostril is wiped by the swab.

In order to participate, you MUST have signed a document that makes you responsible to report all results of your screens. The total number of screens, all positive, all negative and all inconclusive results must be entered in the reporting form available online at www.brantfordbrantchamber.com.

While it might seem to make it faster for you to drop in to pick up, or on nice days a curbside option, we MUST insist on waiting for a confirmed pick-up time.

It is important to keep the numbers of people down to reduce the opportunity for close contact as well as ensuring all of the proper requirements to process your kits.  Please wait until you receive your time/day confirmation from the Chamber of  Commerce Brantford-Brant.

The Ontario Government authorizes “self” screening using these kits. However, there is a requirement that a Screening Supervisor who has been trained via the video you watched at your initial pick up and was sent after your initial order by email.

No one other than the selected Screening Supervisor employee that your business has chosen should perform the swabbing procedure on any employee, the Screening Supervisor is there to instruct and ensure the procedure is followed for an accurate result.

The recommendation from public health is that all employees should be screened twice per week.

It is understood in some settings or with a higher frequency of close contact that some businesses will want to screen more than twice per week. Please advise us at Chamber of Commerce Brantford-Brant. we would like to help but this will affect our required supply needs at the Chamber, and we need a bit of notice to alert our supplier.

Conversely, some may want to test less frequently or may have a variety of schedules that employees are in the workplace. It is really up to you, but please, put the safety of your employees first, and that will ensure you have a safe workplace.

Yes they do, but all boxes marked with the expiry date of 2022.01.22 have been extended for a full 12 months. This means that you are safe to continue using those kits until 2023.01.22. If you would like to receive a document proving the expiry date extension, please email olivia@brcc.ca.

No, these kits are provided free of charge to small and medium-sized businesses for their sole purpose. A designated employee must be assigned the responsibility of taking the supervisor training, ensuring proper screening processes are adhered to and reporting on behalf of the employer the results of the screens. There are avenues available for third-party vendors to purchase their own kits and outside of this program to provide screening services, this program is intended to remain complimentary and direct to employers only.

No, these are not for sale, we are not authorized to charge anyone for these kits, conversely, the document you signed also requires that you not sell or distribute these as well. The box of 25 kits is approximately $200 based on retail information we know of. They are expensive, and this is all funded by the Federal and Provincial Governments of Canada.

No, these kits are not to be used to validate or substantiate an absence in following public health guidelines. They are not intended to be used to verify negative carriers so guidance rules by the Province or local public health can be waived. Any person who screens presumptive negative MUST continue to follow public health guidelines of distancing, washing their hands, wearing a mask properly and adhering to public health gathering orders.

NO. While this screen has extremely good reliability, this is not a tool for travel or usurping any Federal, Provincial or International guidelines.

Contained in each kit are two Control Swabs, one will produce a negative result the other will produce a positive result. These are ONLY to be used for quality control purposes. If you are finding that the results are not showing up on the testing pads, you can follow the process in the manual provided to do a quality control check of the pads by simply following the same testing regime EXCEPT DO NOT SWAB ANYONE WITH THESE CONTROL SWABS, they have ingredients on them already to produce the results. While the Positive Control Swab will show Positive for COVID-19, there is nothing on the swab that is infectious or that will pass COVID-19 it is a pre-loaded swab and should not be used for anything other than quality control.

The Workplace Self Screening Kits program operates Monday – Friday from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm

All kits can be picked up at 77 Charlotte Street, Brantford.