![]() She held off buying the machine due to concerns the tests produced a high number of false-negative results but went ahead earlier this month in order to curtail the long waits, she said. ![]() Given the lag in testing results from big lab companies, Robinson said her health center this month bought a rapid test machine. “If we are not getting people results for at least seven or eight days, it’s an exercise in futility because either people are much worse or they are better” by then, she said. “People are trying to play by the rules, but you are not giving them the tools to help them if they do not know if they tested positive or negative,” she said. Many poor patients don’t have the ability to easily isolate from others because they live in smaller homes with other people. Temple Robinson, M.D., CEO of Bond Community Health Center in Tallahassee, Florida, said test results have gone from a three-day turnaround to 10 days in the past several weeks. “As laboratories respond to unprecedented spikes in demand for testing, we recognize our continued responsibility to deliver accurate and reliable results as quickly as possible.” “We recognize that these test results contain actionable information necessary to guide treatment and inform public health efforts,” said Julie Khani, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, a trade group. The problem is that labs running the tests are overwhelmed as demand has soared in the past month. “We need to find a way to make testing more robust so people can function and know if they can resume normal activities or go back to work.” “It defeats the usefulness of the test,” he said. The state is now looking at partnering with local labs, hoping they can provide faster turnaround.Īmesh Adalja, M.D., an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, said the long waits spell trouble for individuals and complicate the national response to the pandemic. The delays even apply to people in high-risk, vulnerable populations, he said, citing a massive outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, which has been sending its tests to Quest. “We were really making progress as a nation, not just as a state, and now you’re starting to see, because of backlogs with Quest and others, that we’re experiencing multiday delays,” he said. ![]() Gavin Newsom noted the problem when addressing reporters Wednesday. 1 that mandate would be lifted for people who could show they tested negative within three days before arriving in the islands. The state had been requiring visitors to quarantine for 14 days, but it announced last month that starting Aug. The lag times could even foil Hawaii’s plan to welcome more tourists. It’s already keeping some professional baseball teams from training for a late July start of the season. The slow turnaround for results could also delay students’ return to school campuses this fall. “The fact that we can’t quickly get results back so that other people are not unintentionally exposed is the reason we are continuing in this spiral with COVID-19.” “We’ve been testing for months now in America,” she added. During that time, she held a number of meetings with city officials and constituents-“things that I personally would have done differently had I known there was a positive test result in my house,” she said on “Morning Joe.” But they acknowledge that’s not realistic if people have to wait a week or more.Ītlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who announced Monday that she had tested positive for the virus, complained she waited eight days for her results in an interview on MSNBC Wednesday. Health experts advise people to act as if they have COVID-19 while waiting-meaning to self-quarantine and limit exposure to others. The problems mean patients and their physicians don’t have information necessary to know whether to change their behavior. In the spring, it was generally three or four days. While hospital patients can get the findings back within a day, people getting tested at urgent care centers, community health centers, pharmacies and government-run drive-thru or walk-up sites are often waiting a week or more. ![]() Truslow’s experience is an extreme example of the growing and often excruciating waits for COVID-19 test results in the U.S. At this point, the test findings hardly matter anymore. “This is outrageous,” said Truslow, 30, who has been quarantining at home since attending a large rally at the school to demonstrate support of Black Lives Matter. ![]()
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