TORONTO -- Public Health Ontario says normal operations have resumed after an outage prevented test results from being inputted into its lab information system.  

In a notice posted on their website Wednesday night, the health agency informed the public the outage had taken place and apologized for the inconvenience.

“Due to an unexpected outage, PHO’s laboratory is currently unable to access or issue patient test results. Some laboratory test reports may be delayed as a result,” the notice said. “We are working to get back to normal operations as fast as possible.”

The agency announced Thursday morning that everything had resumed back to normal and test results affected by the outage are now being inputted into the system.

"PHO was continuing to test laboratory samples including COVID-19 samples but it was the upload of results into the information system that was affected," the agency said.

"We were calling healthcare providers and local public health units with COVID-19 results for individuals that test positive to ensure patient management and timely public health response."

Public Health Ontario also stated that hospital and community labs were not impacted by the outage and these labs continue to operate and have results available as normal. 

The outage came as the Ontario government announced that select pharmacies across the province will be conducting COVID-19 tests in an effort to help with overcrowding and long wait times at assessment centres.

Last week, residents reported waiting between three to six hours to get a COVID-19 test.

Public Health ONtario

PHO is advising anyone who needs assistance during the outage to call their customer service centre at 1-877-604-4567 to leave a message or speak to an agent.