Long Waits for Results Render COVID Tests 'Useless'

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

FALSE: " anyone who wants a test can get a coronavirus test"

Quest Lab told Montana officials" at capacity" and would be unable to accommodate more tests for two or three weeks.

Kaiser Health News

July 23, 2020

Long Waits for Results Render COVID Tests 'Useless'

Quote

....California, Florida and other states that work with Quest have started experimenting with separate, expedited lines for people who have symptoms of the disease. Some states are contracting with other private labs. And CVS, which uses Quest for COVID tests at many of its sites nationwide, said it is looking for more lab partners to reduce wait times for results.

Quest, LabCorp and other private labs have struggled to expand quickly enough to meet demand as states expand their testing and cases soar across the nation. Officials for Quest, which handles about 130,000 tests daily in 20 laboratories, said its ability to expand has been limited by a global shortage of the machines and chemical reagents needed to perform COVID-19 testing.

On Monday, Quest announced that turnaround times had slowed to a week or more, up from three or four days in June. It also said some patients may face wait times of up to two weeks. Quest officials warned this week that could get worse as flu season starts this fall.

A wait of a week or more for results can make the tests moot, since few people, especially those without symptoms, are likely to remain quarantined that long — and if the test comes back positive, they may already be over the disease....

...The Trump administration is also trying to speed up turnaround times by allowing some labs to use an approach known as pooled testing, which combines samples from multiple people and then screens the individual samples only if the batch comes back positive for the virus. But public health experts worry it may be too late to try pool testing, as the percentage of positive results has doubled or tripled in many parts of the country....

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934480

[NewRN'16, ADN, RN]

If anyone still believes in what out POTUS has to say, tbey are being silly. He doesn't care about human lives. He only cares about numbers . He is just fine with any wait time, as long as these results come back "negative".

I have lost all my hope in the gov.