Virus testing can’t keep up: As more Americans seek COVID-19 tests, labs struggle to get results back quickly.
Delays mean infected people may not know it
testing system is again strained and labs are struggling to keep pace as coronavirus rages faster than ever in the South and West.
From Florida to California, large and small labs running 24/7 can’t process samples quickly enough from millions of Americans tested every week. That means COVID-19 test results are delayed a week or longer in hot spots, undercutting public health efforts to track, isolate and prevent spread.
The number of daily tests reached an all-time high of more than 719,000 on July 3 and averaged nearly 640,000 each day in the past week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
Testing centers in Sun Belt cities such as Tallahassee, Florida, and Phoenix routinely attract long lines and at times turn away people. Other than hospital patients, who get priority at labs, delays are widespread in the South and West at drive-thru and walk-up testing centers, urgent care centers, doctor’s offices and government-supported testing sites.
“We are seeing across the board this very significant increase in demand,” said Julie Khani, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, which represents the nation’s largest commercial labs. “That demand in many cases is now exceeding the number of tests that the labs can perform in a single day.”
The absence of testing to detect SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, left Americans unprepared in February and March as the deadly virus swept across the nation. Congress authorized billions of dollars to help, and private-sector labs provided widespread clinical testing that public health labs could not complete on their own.
But as states have reopened amid a resurgent virus, millions of Americans want to get tested. New cases surpassed 63,000 for the first time Thursday, and as of Saturday there were more than 3.2 million U.S. cases and 134,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, who oversees the Trump administration’s testing efforts, said last week that the nation’s testing system is nearamerica’s ing limits and commercial labs are taking longer to complete nonemergency COVID tests.
“We did anticipate that the lab capacity would at some point in time come close to reaching a max,” Giroir said. “I’m not saying it’s at a max now, but we’re certainly pushing the frontiers.”
Giroir said new “point of care” testing platforms, which deliver quick results at doctors’ offices and clinics, should add 10 million to 20 million tests each month by September.
He urged Americans to demonstrate “personal responsibility” by wearing masks, distancing from others, washing hands and shielding vulnerable people such as older adults or those with underlying health conditions.