The health minister is apologizing for a week-long delay with test results, but not for failing to tell the public.

John Haggie revealed yesterday that local testing capacity had maxed out so samples had to be sent to labs in Toronto and Winnipeg.

Meanwhile, mainstream and social media were flooded with questions and concerns about their tests.

Haggie says he’s sorry for the “excessive” delay, but not so much the communication.

He says officials have openly discussed the contingency plan to send out swabs if the system became overloaded, noting it was done before in February of last year. Haggie says people were not notified because officials didn’t know when they’d receive the results, insisting they have been as open and transparent as possible under the circumstances.

Results from almost 3,000 more tests are expected back today or tomorrow, but Haggie says the change in criteria should allow local labs to handle the load going forward.

Meanwhile, there are still about 25,000 booster or vaccination records on paper, that are not yet uploaded to the portal.

Haggie attributed the lag to demands on the system during the emergence of Omicron over the holidays.