Polk County’s dilemma shared across country as labs struggle to timely process results for COVID-19 tests.
This content is being provided for free as a public service to our readers during the coronavirus outbreak. Please support local journalism by subscribing to theledger.com at theledger.com/subscribenow.
Polk County is slowly getting swept up in a troubling national trend: the demand for COVID-19 testing is, again, outpacing laboratories’ capacity to process results.
Polk has seen a surge in new coronavirus cases over the past two weeks. There were 322 new cases reported Wednesday, according to the Florida Department of Health, bringing the county’s total to 8,206 cases. Midway through July, Polk has been reported with 4,146 cases this month, an average of 296.1 per day.
The latest numbers indicate at least 1 out of every 100 people in the county has contracted the virus, based on an estimated population of 724,777, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The median age of new cases is 39 with people under age 34 comprising roughly 42% of all the county’s infected.
COVID-19’s community spread has led to increased demand for testing. Polk averaged between 800 to 1,400 tests per day through early July, according to state health reports, before testing swelled to more 2,000 per day from July 9 to 12.
While the testing numbers dropped over the past two days, Florida Department of Health in Polk is starting to deploy pop-up sites using $10 million in federal funds set aside by Polk Board of County Commissioners.
Nicole Riley, spokeswoman for Polk’s health department, said 560 people were tested for COVID-19 at the Haines City event on July 10. Two more events were planned this week in Lakeland and Haines City, according to Riley, and more will be announced on a weekly basis.
The surge in coronavirus testing is happening not just in Polk, but across Florida and the nation as testing samples increased to 640,000 per day on average, an increase from 518,000 two weeks ago, according to an Associated Press analysis.
It’s starting to affect local health care providers and the nation’s laboratories.
Long wait locally
Dr. Steven Achinger, managing partner of Watson Clinic, said the clinic has been telling patients to expect a 10- to 11-day wait for their COVID-19 test results. The clinic sends all samples to two of the largest national commercial laboratories, Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp, for processing, according to Achinger.
“At one point we were receiving them in 2 to 4 days, but that hasn't been the case for the last two weeks,” he said. “We do believe the current increased turnaround time is due to the massive volume of specimens being sent to these two laboratories.”
Lakeland Regional Health’s Respiratory Care Center also is experiencing about a 10-day wait for its patients’ results. The center sends patient samples out to a non-disclosed commercial lab, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Audette.
Quest Diagnostics has processed more than 595,000 of the 2.6 million tests collected in Florida to date, according to state health department reports. The company has openly admitted it is struggling to keep pace with demand.
In a July 3 press statement, Quest said priority patient results are processed in “slightly more than one day,” however, the average turnaround time is seven days or more.
“Despite our rapid scaling up of capacity, soaring demand for COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests across the United States is slowing the time in which we can provide test results,” said the company’s statement. “We attribute this demand primarily to the rapid, continuing spread of COVID-19 infections across the nation but particularly in the South, Southwest and West regions of the country.”
Quest said it had the capacity to process 125,000 tests a day, roughly double from eight weeks ago. The company stated it hopes to have the capacity to process 150,000 samples daily by the end of July.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged the issue with delayed test results, similar to the start of the pandemic, during a July 13 press conference. DeSantis called for commercial labs to provide faster results to those residents seeking COVID-19 testing through drive-thru sites.
“[People] are not getting their results back for seven days and we want to improve that,” he said.
Quest Diagnostics has stated it may not be able to cut down its processing lag.
“We want patients and healthcare providers to know that we will not be in a position to reduce our turnaround times as long as cases of COVID-19 continue to increase dramatically across much of the United States,” said the company’s July 13 statement.
It’s not all bad in Polk
Many of Lakeland’s and Polk’s health care providers said they are not currently experiencing lengthy delays for COVID-19 test results.
BayCare, which operates Winter Haven Hospital, would not disclose what private laboratories it uses to process COVID-19 tests, but said patient results are available in three to four days, according to spokeswoman Vjollca Hysenlika.
Riley said the state receives patient results in two to four days on average.
At Lakeland Regional Health, the average turnaround time for COVID-19 results is three to four days for emergency room patients and its own drive-thru testing. It continues to look for ways to cut down the wait.
“We are exploring testing platforms that offer quicker turnaround times on results,” said Lakeland Regional Health in a July 14 press statement. “We recently expanded our testing capacity at the Drive-Thru Testing Center to be able to accommodate 40 more tests each day.”
Achinger said Watson Clinic’s staff is thinking creatively to help offset another troubling development — limited availability of testing supplies.
“Early in the pandemic, we saw issues with limited availability of testing supplies,” he said. “Testing kits were very scarce in the early stages and continue to be.”
Watson Clinic is ordering each component for testing kits separately and assembling them internally, Achinger said. He believes many other health care providers are doing the same.
Lakeland Regional Health is also “aggressively exploring ways to procure additional testing options,” according to its July 14 press release.
Achinger said these supply shortages have not stopped Watson Clinic from treating patients.
“We have run low, but we have never needed to stop testing due to a shortage,” he said.
Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545.
"behind" - Google News
July 16, 2020 at 03:08AM
https://ift.tt/2ChnnST
Testing falls behind Polk’s surge in COVID-19 cases - The Ledger
"behind" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YqUhZP
https://ift.tt/2yko4c8
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Testing falls behind Polk’s surge in COVID-19 cases - The Ledger"
Post a Comment