In January, the EORLA Regional Virology Laboratory at CHEO in Ottawa was a little lab with 10 staff working mostly days. With the onset of the pandemic they've rapidly expanded to a group of 30 lab professionals working 24/7 on PCR testing. They transformed the lab quickly to perform approximately 10% of all COVID-19 testing in Ontario. Their team has processed as many tests in the last 6 months as they normally would in 5 years.

Our CEO Michelle Hoad sat down to speak with Microbiologist Dr. Leanne Mortimer, Sr. MLT Soni Rousseau and Bench MLT, Virology Michelle Gagnon to hear how they worked together to validate and set up the lab.

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Season 2 of The Dish focuses on how labs have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are rapidly ramping up testing and overcoming immeasurable odds testing for COVID-19, others are struggling or working on other testing while staff are re-deployed elsewhere. Join us as we follow one lab each month and explore how the pandemic is impacting labs across the province, from the patterns between to specific local situations.