US labs buckle amid testing surge; world virus cases top 15M

[UpInArms]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are actually undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of infections at 3.9 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves, dealing with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that asymptomatic people could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.

... snip ...

Jay Solomon, CEO of Aviva in Sarasota, a senior community with a nursing home and assisted living facility, said results were taking up to 10 days to come back.

“It’s almost like, what are we accomplishing in that time?” Solomon said. “If that person is not quarantined in that 7-10 days, are they spreading without realizing it?”

Read more: https://apnews.com/969fbbf44dd2ba1acea130f95b21ef62

[MontanaMama]

1. Gosh.

Just like the flu.

[yaesu]

2. the system of control was never set up to control something so out of control

we had our chance, tRumpsters blew it, the tRumpvirus will be haunting this country for years.

[FakeNoose]

5. That's why we need to start calling it the Trump virus

We've had to listen to Repukes say "Obamacare" for the last 10 years.

[yaesu]

3. major league baseball players are getting tested daily and I can't get one fucking test in my county

[EarthFirst]

4. This. nt

[Roy Rolling]

10. Ditto 👆

Seriously. They will test NBA players daily. Why can’t an ordinary worker bee ever get an even break in Trump’s America?

[Raven123]

6. Why doesn't Congress subpoena these folks? The black box of testing deficiency demands investigation

1) what is their testing capacity ?
2) How do they determine the testing capacity to build.
3) who or what organization, if any, has contacted them about increasing capacity.
4) if they have been contacted, what were they told, what have they done about it?
5) clearly the status quo is inadequate. What is needed to increase it?

[Sgent]

9. Other than public health departments / CDC

private labs don't want to expand testing too much because once a vaccine is produced they will have useless lab equipment. PCR tests are used for a lot of different reasons, but there is a maximum number of $100,000+ machines that a lab needs during non-pandemic times -- and they aren't getting paid well enough to ramp up testing much beyond that.

In addition there is a lot of point of care testing that is being investigated / will be released over the next 2 months, so central labs don't want to invest in machinery that will sit around unused.

This is a known failure of capitalism, and is why we have laws like the defense production act -- but we have an idiot in chief. At least in my state the public health department is doing less than 1% of the testing.

[Raven123]

11. I believe you are correct. Having them on record builds the case for public buildout of this need

[OneCrazyDiamond]

7. Maybe we could outsource the testing to country who have a handle on this?

Maybe China?

[LiberalArkie]

8. When is the U.S. going to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. ?