As The COVID Surge Continues, Testing Efforts Feel The Strain
In recent months, the U.S. has vastly improved its testing abilities, but the rapidly growing case rates in states across the country could undo these gains. Fits and starts are taking place in California, Georgia and North Carolina, among other places. Contact tracing, which is also a key step in controlling the virus's spread, is also drawing headlines.
The surge in coronavirus cases across the country has put a strain on U.S. testing capacity again. Six months into the pandemic, the U.S. has significantly increased its testing abilities. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the nation averages about 600,000 tests per week, and the country conducted about 15 million diagnostic tests in June alone, according to the COVID Tracking Project. (Weixel, 7/7)
The coronavirus pandemic is becoming an increasingly urgent situation in the Sacramento region and across California as a whole, both of which are grappling with record-setting influxes of new cases and quickly filling intensive care units of some hospitals. The newest and most severe local setback came with Mondays announcement that Sacramento County will need to at least temporarily close five community test centers this week, all of them in underserved communities, due to a lack of testing materials caused by a nationwide supply shortage. (McGough, 7/7)
Gov. Brian Kemp has asked the federal government to send more resources to expand COVID-19 testing in Gwinnett County and to renew funds needed to keep the National Guard staffing testing sites around the state. Kemp on Tuesday asked for help getting personal protective equipment like masks and gloves for the states first responders and essential workers and an extension in funding for the Georgia National Guard, which has been performing COVID-19 testing and sanitizing long-term care homes during the pandemic. (Coyne, 7/8)
North Carolina announced Tuesday that residents will no longer need a doctors referral to get a coronavirus test. The order, lasting until Gov. Roy Coopers current state of emergency is rescinded, aims to encourage more Black, Hispanic and Native American residents to get tested. (Anderson, 7/7)
Kaiser Health News:
COVID-Tracking Apps Proliferate, But Will They Really Help?
My 18-year-old daughter, Caroline, responded quickly when I told her that shed soon be able to download an app to alert her when she had been in risky proximity to someone with COVID-19, and that public health officials hoped to fight the pandemic with such apps. Yeah, but nobody will use them, she replied. (Wolfson, 7/8)
When a healthcare worker tests positive for COVID-19, it kicks off a labor-intensive process inside the hospital to track down which colleagues they've interacted with and therefore could be infected, too. That's not unique to the novel coronavirus. If an employee is diagnosed with an infectious disease that can be transmitted in the workplace, infection prevention and occupational health teams have to figure out who else might have been exposed. (Cohen, 7/7)
In related legislative news
Democratic leaders of House and Senate health-related committees asked the Trump administration to revise guidance that would exempt insurers from paying for occupational COVID-19 testing. (Cohrs, 7/7)
