COVID-19-positive samples from southwestern Ontario for variants of concern.The new service at PaLM, a joint venture between the London Health Sciences Centre and St.
Joseph’s Health Care London, is part of provincial screening efforts to identify variant of concern cases, which now account for roughly 90 per cent of new cases in Ontario.“Variant of concern screening has been live in Ontario for a few months now, but that work was being done exclusively at Public Health Ontario in Toronto,” says Chief Laboratory Officer Mike Kadour.“We are now participating to help lighten the load and improve the timeliness for our communities in southwestern Ontario.” COVID-19: Public Health Ontario confirms 36 cases of B.1.617 variant now in province .