Test results turnaround time shrinks
In July, as coronavirus cases surged elsewhere in the country, hospitals and test providers in Connecticut warned that wait times for test results could be six to 10 days.
Daily new cases nationwide peaked at 75,682 on July 16 but bottomed out at 25,173 on Sept. 7, the lowest level since June 16, according to data compiled by The New York Times. New cases were back up to 48,875 this past Friday, but the large drop since July came with a drop in wait times for diagnostic test results.
In its latest media statement, dated Monday evening, Quest Diagnostics said its average turnaround time
for reporting results is two days across all populations, and slightly above one day for hospitalized and presurgical patients and people in longterm care.
By comparison, in July, it was one day for hospital patients, pre-operative patients and symptomatic health care workers but seven days on average for everyone else. According to Quest, this is the fourth consecutive week that the average turnaround time was two days or less.
Quest now has the capacity to perform 200,000 tests a day. The company could do 125,000 tests per day in mid-July and had expected to hit 150,000 by the end of the month. Quest said on Aug. 3 that its expectation was 185,000 tests per day by Labor Day, and it ended up hitting 200,000 tests by Aug. 31.
As of Monday, Quest had reported results of about 14.4 million COVID-19 diagnostic tests.
The average wait time for test results through CVS is about two to three days, spokesperson Tara Burke said
Thursday, whereas CVS was warning in June it could take six to 10 days to get results. Burke said CVS has “significantly improved the turnaround time for test results since bringing on additional (third-party) labs.”
In addition to bringing on additional labs, she said turnaround times from lab partners improved. Burke said 3 million tests across the country have been completed through CVS since March.
CVS announced Thursday that it was opening seven more drive-thru testing sites in Connecticut on Friday, including one in Waterford.
The current turnaround time within Yale New Haven Health, which includes Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and Westerly Hospital, is less than 24 hours, spokesperson Fiona Phelan said. She had noted even in July that because Yale New Haven Health has the resources to run its own testing rather than using outside labs, turnaround times were 12-24 hours.
More than 32,000 people have been tested to date at L+M and Westerly hospitals, she said.
Local colleges and universities vary in testing protocols, positive results
The University of New Haven announced a partnership with Yale New Haven Health on Aug. 31. Phelan noted that Yale New Haven Health also has relationships with Mitchell College, Mohegan Sun, Electric Boat and more.
As of Friday, Mitchell College reported 238 COVID-19 test results so far, of which 237 were negative and one was invalid.
Both Mitchell College and Connecticut College have partnered with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for COVID-19 testing and are using the CoVerified app. But Mitchell College is randomly testing 5% to 10% of the student, faculty and staff population twice a week, whereas Connecticut College is testing every student twice a week.
Faculty and staff members who are at Connecticut College three or more days a week are tested twice a week, whereas those there two or fewer days a week are tested once a week, Dean of Students Victor Arcelus said.
Each student is assigned to get tested either Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday, Arcelus explained. They can go on CoVerified to choose what time of day to get tested, which is done in Dayton Arena. He explained the process for the lower nasal swab, which is similar to the process for drive-thru testing at a CVS.
Arcelus said at the end of each day, tubes are packed up and sent with a courier that leaves campus at 5:30 p.m. and goes to the Broad Institute in Boston. Negative tests show up on each student’s CoVerified app within 24 hours, and the college has another notification and isolation process for students who test positive.
Arcelus said as a nonprofit, the Broad Institute offers the testing to institutions of higher education at about $25 per test.
On Saturday the Conn College dashboard, or website tracking COVID-19 results, showed that 2,636 tests were performed Sept. 14-20 and one student tested positive. Since Aug. 17, the college has had 12,215 tests performed, with six students and zero employees testing positive. That yields a positivity rate of about 0.05%, whereas the latest statewide rate is about 20 times that.
The cumulative positive test rate for residential students at the University of Connecticut at Storrs is 1.39%, with 132 positive test results out of 10,199 tests, according to that system’s dashboard. The current positive rate, which includes only students currently in isolation, is 1.02%.
At UConn Avery Point in Groton, all commuter students taking in-person classes were required to be tested before arriving on campus, and the testing period ended last Sunday. No positive tests have been reported since.
Quest now has the capacity to perform 200,000 tests a day. The company could do 125,000 tests per day in mid-July and had expected to hit 150,000 by the end of the month. Quest said on Aug. 3 that its expectation was 185,000 tests per day by Labor Day, and it ended up hitting 200,000 tests by Aug. 31.