Doing whatever it takes to get Covid-19 swabs tested
With just 24 hours’ notice that Air New Zealand would not fly from New Plymouth during lockdown, Taranaki laboratory workers had to think fast.
They had swabs of possible Covid-19 patients that needed to be tested in Wellington and with air freight out of the question, and the cost of an urgent courier too high, one staff member drove to Wellington and back during their weekend to transport the samples.
‘‘It was a 10 to 12 hour turnaround,’’ Taranaki District Health Board laboratory operations manager Judith Rowland said.
While thousands of Covid-19 swabs have been taken in Taranaki, none are analysed here.
Rather, the lab at Taranaki Base Hospital ensures the specimens are labelled correctly and forwards samples to larger labs that do bulk testing.
Swabs of people who don’t have any symptoms go to Canterbury. Those who have come in contact with people diagnosed with Covid-19, or have symptoms themselves, are sent to Wellington.
‘‘If someone is symptomatic we want to know very quickly if they’re a positive,’’ Rowland said.
They’ll soon be able to test some swabs on site for those who are very sick and might require intensive care.
When Covid-19 kicked off, lab staff battled to keep up as things were changing every day.
Even now they say they frequently learn new things about the virus.
‘‘Like there’s now indication that it has different effects on children,’’ quality manager Amy Worthington said.
‘‘The globalised response has helped us understand what we are dealing with.’’
Roughly 5000 tests have been carried out in Taranaki so far.
With the country now in level 2, Worthington said she expects their workload to increase.
‘‘We will have probably the same to more Covid testing because with level 2 it brings more people moving around.’’
They have now started doing population testing to see if the coronavirus is in the community.
‘‘So asymptomatic testing for a lot of groups who may have come in contact, which includes hospital staff, the police force, ambulance staff, and rest home workers,’’ charge scientist microbiology Melanie Williams said.
Last week the lab processed around 700 swabs of people who had no symptoms.
While the number of new cases continues to be low in New Zealand, Williams said it was not over yet.
‘‘New Zealand have done so well in bringing the numbers down and people need to realise it is still important, it is still in the background. We’re not through it yet.’’