City to start drive-thru testing this week.

Officials say they are trying to get enough protective gear for those taking specimens

San Antonio, Dallas and Austin have all begun providing drivethru testing for the new coronavirus, but Houston officials would say Monday only that they hope to have their own program operating late this week at two sites.

Dr. David Persse, the city’s health authority, said the holdup involves getting an adequate amount of protective gear for personnel who will take specimens from car-bound individuals suspected of having the virus. He said the gear is en route.

“We have a plan and are ready to go,” Persse said Monday at a news conference led by Houston and Harris County public officials. “We’ve done some dry runs and hope to be up and running by the end of the week.”

Persse gave no other details about the plan and could not be reached for comment after the meeting.

U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, whose district includes the Texas Medical Center, said that the delay was due to a shipment error. He told the Chronicle a delivery received late Sunday contained heavy protective equipment actually used to protect medical staff working with the Ebola virus, not the coronavirus. The equipment is unsuitable for a worker to wear all day at an outdoor drive-thru operation.

Green, who intervened on behalf of the medical center to have state and federal authorities provide the equipment, said the suits sent are “so contained, the workers couldn’t stay in them.”

Drive-thru testing, now in eight states, represents the newest front in the effort to get more people tested for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The idea is that individuals can get tested without leaving their car, allowing for both quicker and safer testing since the patient is more isolated there than, say, the waiting room of a doctor’s office.

Drive-thru testing does not mean anyone can drive up and

get tested. The program typically requires a doctor’s note and referral to the program.

Testing is considered a key step in slowing the spread of COVID-19, which has been confirmed in more than 8,500 people in the U.S. and killed 85. By identifying people with the virus, it enables them to be quarantined and kept from spreading the disease.

The lack of such testing has hampered U.S. efforts. Frustration over the issue boiled over on Capitol Hill last week as both Republican and Democratic members of Congress demanded to

know why the U.S. wasn’t testing as fast as some other countries. South Korea has tested about 250,000 people since its outbreak began on Jan. 21, compared to about 20,000 in the same time period in the U.S.

“Anything to get more people identified and provide data sounds good to me,” said Peter Hotez, a Houston infectious disease specialist who said he knew nothing of the logistics of the Houston plan. “It’s awful how little information we have.”

U.S. testing was hampered at first by flawed test kits sent out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to public health laboratories across the country. Once they got the kits, critics complained about the narrow criteria

from the agency about who qualified for a test.

The Harris Health System on Friday switched to a private diagnostic company to test its suspected cases instead of the Houston health department, freeing its doctors to order up tests at their discretion rather than having to adhere to the CDC’s recommended guidelines. Those guidelines confine local health department testing to patients experiencing certain respiratory symptoms who’ve also had direct person-to-person contact with someone infected or who have recently traveled to an area where there’s been community spread.

The plan to follow the lead of those states and make testing available to people in their cars

was announced by Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday. At a news conference, he said that San Antonio’s program was already up and running and that Dallas, Houston and Austin would open ones in coming weeks.

In fact, Austin already opened drive-thru testing Friday at a Baylor Scott & White Health clinic. On Monday, the Parkland Health & Hospital System began such testing for its patients, first responders and health care workers.

The Houston effort will be a collaboration involving the city and a number of Texas Medical Center hospitals and institutions.