Over 34,000 Saskatchewan residents have been tested for COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with the majority of those tests having been sent to the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory in Regina.
The lab is currently operating 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Dr. Jessica Minion is a medical microbiologist, and the clinical lead of public health laboratories in the province.
According to her, testing has taken over most operations at the lab. “It is very busy,” said Minion. “A lot of our routine work has gone to the sides.” The number of staff working in the lab changes on a daily basis, depending on how many tests need to be processed on a given day. “Overall, we’ve got more than 30 people that are trained to help with the testing,” Minion