COVID-19 testing delaysmay be even worse in flu season
Come fall, the rise of influenza and other seasonal respiratory infections could exacerbate already staggering delays in corona virus testing, making it easier for the virus to spread unnoticed, experts said.
In typical years, doctors often do not test for flu, simply assuming that patients with coughs, fever sand fatigue during the wintermonthsare probably carrying the highly infectious virus. But this year, with thecoronavirus bringing similar symptoms, doctors will need to test for both viruses to diagnose their patients—furtherstraining supply short ages in an already overwhelmed testing system.
A handful of manufacturers have begun making tests that can screen for several pathogensatonce. Butthesecombo tests are expensive and will likelymakeuponly a fraction ofthemarket. Someresearchers are trying to make their ownmulti-virus tests aswell, but they almost certainly will not fill in the gaps.
“The flu season is a bit of a ticking time bomb,” said
Amanda Harrington, medical director of microbiology at Loyola University Medical Center. “We are all waiting and trying to prepare as best we can.”
Flu viruses and coronaviruses differ in many ways, including how they spread, how long they linger in the body and the groups they affect most severely. Food and Drug Administration-approvedantivirals and vaccines exist for the flu, but no such treatments yet exist for the coronavirus, which has killed about 800,000 people worldwide in less than a year.
Being infected with one virus does not preclude contracting the other. And researchers also do not yet knowhowrisky it is for a person to harbor both viruses at the same time. Those differencesmake it essential tot ease the two pathogens apart, as well as rule out other common wintry infections like respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which hits the very young and very old especially hard.
But testing for individual viruses poses many challenges for doctors and laboratory workers alreadyfighting their way through supply short ages. Several of these tests use similar machines and chemicals, and require handling and processing by trained personnel.
What’smore, manyfluand RSV tests vanished from the market this spring as the companies that make them rapidly pivoted to address the coronavirus.
Late summer is typically whenlaboratories start stockpiling flu tests, RSV tests, and flu-RSV combo tests in anticipation of the fall surge, said Susan Butler-Wu, clinical microbiology lab director with theUniversity of Southern California’s Keck School ofMedicine, whose lab purchases thousands of these tests every winter. But the supplychainshake-uphasleft shelves emptyweeks before one of the busiest times of the year.
“Many people are legitimately concerned about the winter because we’ re notable to squirrel away our nuts right now,” Butler-Wusaid.“Every lab is fighting togetwhat they need for their system.”
Public health laboratories run at the state and county level — which process thou