Yes. Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There's a lot to be proud of, but in the early days of the COVID-19 response, testing supply reagents were scarce and difficult to come by. Scientists at the laboratory attacked the problem in a number of different ways, including by working with provinces, territories and industry to find solutions, to bring in reagents, swabs, test kits and PCR. We also developed our very own reagent when we could not buy any on the open market so that provinces and territories could continue to do testing.
We went from capacity being 10,000 to well over 200,000 PCR tests per day in that time. We have built sequencing capacity and wastewater testing and have brought diagnostic technologies to our northern regions.