Supply woes slow COVID-19 testing
Humboldt County is far ahead of adjacent counties when it comes to testing for COVID-19, but supply chain issues are preventing more widespread testing.
According to the New York Times, Humboldt County was the first rural county in the United States to report a case of COVID-19, on Feb. 20, but has also tested more people than neighboring counties. As of Friday, Humboldt County has tested a total of 1,349 people compared to 162 people in Del Norte County, 67 in Trinity County and 372 people in Mendocino County.
“The county testing rate of 947 per 100,000 residents exceeds the state rate of 445 per 100,000 and the national rate of 726 per 100,000 peo
ple,” according to a Humboldt County press release.
Even with that, the county is working with the state and trying to find the supplies needed to conduct the tests, said Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankovich in a video released Wednesday.
“Right now, again, limiting factors are supplies,” Frankovich said. “Even if you have equipment present to do things a little bit differently we have to have the reagents that allow us to operate and so we are in a constant quest and queue to get some of the things that might help us add even more to our ability to test.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends prioritizing hospitalized patients and symptomatic health care workers first, followed by symptomatic first responders, patients in longterm care facilities, people over the age of 65 and people who have underlying health conditions. Testing asymptomatic individuals isn’t a priority, the CDC website states.
When it comes to who gets tested, Frankovich said the county isn’t strictly following the CDC’s guidelines in terms of who it tests, but is prioritizing those tests pretty closely to those guidelines.
“We do have to ensure the most rapid turnaround time for individuals where the stakes are a bit higher,” Frankovich said. “In the sense of people living in congregate settings, hospitalized patients, health care workers, where there are big implications if we have a positive test.”
The county Public Health Laboratory has tested 785 people and other sources, such as the CDC, the state Department of Public Health and commercial labs, have tested 564 people as of Friday.
Most of the testing in the county is being done by Open Door Community Health Centers, said its CEO Tory Starr, and the clinics are trying mostly to use the county Public Health Laboratory, which can process about 55 tests per day, “because it’s a lot quicker.”
“LabCorp has gotten totally backed up,” Starr said, adding it takes about five days longer.
LabCorp is a private company that “has performed more than 500,000 tests since first making our COVID-19 test available on March 5,” company spokesperson Mike Geller wrote in an email. “We know that there is more that needs to be done and we’re committed to doing our part during this emergency health crisis.”
“Based on current volume levels, we have been able to reduce the time it takes to deliver test results to the ordering healthcare provider to between 2-4 days from the date of specimen pickup,” Geller wrote, “and we remain focused on decreasing the time patients need to wait to be informed of their results.”
Geller wrote he couldn’t comment on specifics about testing in Humboldt County, but added the company has expanded its testing capabilities, “can now perform approximately 40,000 tests per day and expects capacity to increase further, assuming supplies remain available.”
This is partly the result of just-in-time manufacturing practices, Starr said, which was most notably used by car manufacturer Toyota to reduce waste by ordering just enough supplies.
“Why should they pay for storage when they could just make sure downstream contractors could produce things for them as they needed them,” Starr said. “It makes total sense for making cars, but it doesn’t make sense for safety things and medical supplies.”