Testing is recommended for patients with cold, influenza or COVID-19-like symptoms, however mild. Symptoms may include: fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, runny nose, sore throat, loss of sense of smell, headache, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, or loss of appetite.
Testing is especially important for groups that are more vulnerable to complications due to COVID-19, people who care for these individuals, and for people for whom a diagnosis will change the public health management or care they receive.
Testing is particularly important for symptomatic individuals who are:
- Residents and staff of long-term care facilities
- Requiring admission to hospital or likely to be admitted, such as pregnant individuals near-term, patients on hemodialysis, or cancer patients receiving radiation or chemotherapy.
- Healthcare workers
- Contacts of a known case of COVID-19
- Travellers who in the past 14 days returned to B.C. from outside Canada, or from an area with higher infection rates within Canada
- Residents of remote, isolated, or Indigenous communities
- Living in congregate settings such as work-camps, correctional facilities, shelters, group homes, assisted living and seniors’ residences
- Homeless or have unstable housing
- Essential service providers, such as first responders
Clinical judgement remains important in the differential diagnosis and work-up of individuals presenting with these symptoms (e.g., people with allergies).
