Alberta to hand out free rapid tests before the holidays: sources

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The province will give free rapid tests to any Albertan that wants one before the holidays, CTV News has learned.

The announcement is expected to come on Tuesday, when Premier Jason Kenney is also set to lift restrictions on gathering sizes.

“We think it makes sense to potentially move forward with some common sense, modest relaxation of measures for Christmas,” Kenney said in a news conference on Friday.

While party planning hinges on what might happen, doctors are encouraging a cautious approach to limit the spread of COVID-19, especially with the presence of the Omicron variant in the province.

“The rate of growth is three times faster than Delta,” Gosia Gasperowicz, a University of Calgary developmental biologist, explained.

On average, one person with Omicron is infecting 3.32 people, Gasperowicz said of the current R-value.

“It’s higher than the rate of spread than the original variant would have without any restrictions and without vaccinations.”

“Even if it will be milder, it’s not a blessing,” she said. “If we let it grow it will kill more people, it will make many people very, very sick. We should do everything now to prevent it from establishing itself.”

However, Dr. Noel Gibney with the faculty of medicine and dentistry at the U of A, said people are going to gather no matter the guidelines, and suggests making booster shots and rapid tests more accessible to help mitigate infections instead.

“The reality is that people haven’t seen some of their family members and friends for significant time and so I think the issue is whether or not the province makes regulations that say, ‘Well, you can’t do that,’ I think people are going to do it,” he said. “So I think the question is how can we minimize the risk associated with this?”

On Friday, Kenney said his own Christmas plans would violate current restrictions.

“I can tell you in my own family, I'll be gathering with three family members, all fully vaccinated, we come from three households. But we wouldn't do that this Christmas based on the current rules,” Kenney said.

But, Gasperowicz has a different opinion and doesn’t believe now is the time to ease up on restrictions.

“If someone is loosening the rules, the signal is that it’s all fine, actually it’s getting safer than it was a week ago and the fact is that it’s getting more dangerous now,” she said.

“If someone is not vaccinated they shouldn’t gather,” Gibney added. “That’s going to create difficulty for families but at the same time it is important to limit it to vaccinated people.”

He also noted taking a test the day before going to a gathering to ensure you are not positive and showing no symptoms of infection to prevent transmitting the disease to someone most at risk of a severe outcome.

“Individuals just need to be careful and try to protect their older family members.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Touria Izri