RICHMOND COUNTY - After several weeks without COVID-19 testing opportunities for Richmond County residents, two pop-up clinics and a rapid-test kit distribution centre arrived in the county this week, with the latter setting up shop only hours after Premier Tim Houston and Nova Scotia's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Robert Strang, held their latest media briefing on the province's strategies to curtail the spread of the Omicron variant. 

Eyewitnesses reported heavy traffic at the parking lot of St. Louis Parish Hall in Louisdale, where packages of five rapid test kits were made available to each driver that arrived on the scene between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. This represented the first time that rapid tests were made available to the general public since early December, when Nova Scotia Public Health officials ordered the province's library system to stop handing out free test kits. Dr. Strang has said on two occasions - most recently, Wednesday afternoon - that libraries may still come back onstream as part of the province's testing strategy, as Nova Scotia awaits the shipment of hundreds of thousands of rapid-test kits pledged by the federal government earlier this winter. 

In the meantime, the independent firm Praxes Medical Solutions has once again received clearance from Nova Scotia Public Health to conduct full COVID-19 tests at pop-up clinics in the Strait Area. These clincs will take place today at the Our Lady of Assomption Parish Hall in Arichat and tomorrow at St. Peter's Lions' Hall, with both clinics running from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. In each case, tests will be conducted on a first-come, first-serve basis, with no ID or appointments necessary. As well, rapid-test kits will be available at each of these pop-up clinics, while supplies last.