New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘WE ARE DOING OUR BEST’
Demand for COVID-19 testing rises
NEW HAVEN — It was a family affair, though a serious one.
Nestor Rey-Alvarez, an essential worker at a grocery store, decided it was time to get tested for COVID-19 given the recent spike in cases that has left the state on red alert.
“I have to take precautions at this time,” Rey-Alvarez said.
There had been a long line, but by the time he got to the Columbus Family Academy on Blatchley Avenue in Fair Haven, he and his mother were able to check in with no wait.
“I figured if he was going to do it, I would do it with him,” said Myreya Alvarez.
“I also want to see my mom for Thanksgiving ... and I wouldn’t take the chance otherwise without a test,” she said.
They were among the 330 who took advantage of the free service in a weekend session arranged by Fair Haven Community Health Care, where there were four staff members registering people and four more conducting the tests.
Dr. Suzanne Lagarde, president and CEO of Fair Haven Community Health Care, said the recent increase in the demand for testing has grown exponentially.
She estimated that 2,400 people came to the main clinic on Grand Avenue to be tested for COVID-19 from Nov. 9-14, some 300 to 400 per day, compared to a more typical week when it was between 80 and 90 people.
She said the positivity rate for New Haven residents, just from their own data, was 13.4 percent from Nov. 2 to Nov. 14.
Lagarde said this is exclusive of the testing they do at eight nursing homes. She said they are the only federally qualified clinic that is part of the state’s CARES Partner program.
“We are doing 1,000 tests weekly in those places,” she said.
“We test all staff every week. We test residents if there is as few as one positive case, then we end up testing residents weekly until we get two consecutive negative tests,” she said.
Lagarde said it is clear that this virus will enter a nursing facility through the staff.
She believes the state’s program in monitoring nursing homes at this juncture is one of the best in the country given the significant boost in testing.
However, data released Monday also showed that deaths attributed to COVID-19 are increasing again at Connecticut’s nursing homes as the state continued to break daily records for newly reported cases of the virus.
The CEO said beyond the physical testing of people, there are other time-consuming components to the process.
Every time there is a test, they have to place an order with the patient’s demographics and contact information, label the sample and send it to Quest Diagnostics. When the results are in, they have to contact the patient.
She said the communities they cover usually are Fair Haven, Branford and East Haven.
The CEO said one night last week they ran a testing site at Amity High School.
The clinicians were supposed to be there from 2 to 6 p.m. They arrived at 12:30 p.m. and the line of cars for the drive-through was more than a mile long. Police closed the line at 4 p.m., but staff was there until 9 p.m., she said.
“The demand is huge. The positivity rate is up. We need to meet the need. We are doing our best. That’s all I can say,” Lagarde said.