Daily dash from lab to wards
When a sample tests positive for coronavirus in the laboratory, scientists can watch in real time as a line rises exponentially on a computer screen.
The line represents the genetic material of the virus being amplified many hundreds of thousands of times so it can be detected and verified. If the line goes up, that person has Covid-19.
Asked if he has ever sat down to watch the process play out, Dr Joshua Freeman laughs. ‘‘I could,’’ he says, ‘‘but it probably wouldn’t be a very good use of my time.’’
Stuff is celebrating the coronavirus champions – including essential services workers and community volunteers – who are keeping New Zealand going through the lockdown.
Freeman is the microbiology clinical director and infection prevention and control acting director for the Canterbury District Health Board.
For the past month, he has been rushing back and forth between Christchurch Hospital and Canterbury Health Laboratories.
‘‘I kind of lurch between these two worlds,’’ he says.
In the laboratory, Freeman troubleshoots problems, dispenses advice to frontline medical workers about who to test and follows closely the work of his colleagues to maximise testing supplies, such as pooling three samples together and only testing individually if they return a positive signal.
He isn’t running the tests himself, but describes himself as an intermediary between frontline doctors and the scientists processing the samples.
In the hospital, it is all about infection prevention and control – that is, how to reduce the risk of the virus spreading in hospitals and other healthcare settings to keep staff and patients safe.
Freeman has been involved in setting up a testing site for healthcare workers, and he issues guidance to people in different parts of the system.
His is a big-picture role, one dedicated to making sure everything knits together smoothly. To that end, he works to support the public health teams carrying out contact tracing, and checks in with workers at the community-based assessment centres. ‘‘Ultimately my focus has also been on what happens in the community, because this is a battle that’s won or lost in the community.’’
Freeman says he has to make a choice every morning.
‘‘I go where I feel I can make the most difference. That’s got to be in terms of those numbers that [director-general of health] Ashley Bloomfield reads out every day – that’s what I’ve got to think about.
‘‘Because there’s a lot of noise going on, there’s a lot of distraction, and you’ve got to think about where you can actually reduce spread – it’s all about prevention.’’
When it comes to positive test results, instead of watching the computer graph tick upwards Freeman and his colleagues are more interested in the implications. Could this be a case of community transmission, for example, and what immediate actions are required?
‘‘I think it’s very satisfying to see the whole system working together so when we detect these cases that there’s appropriate action,’’ he says.
Relentless, is how he describes the workload. But rewarding.
‘‘I’m not some sort of lone ranger. Everybody is working really, really hard and we’re all working really, really well as a team – in the lab and across the road as well. It really is quite amazing to see.’’