If you work in health care, you know that everyone uses Quest and LabCorp. So when these two private labs are collapsing under the sheer numbers of samples, it affects health facilities all across the country. 2/ #PIHchat
A typical example. You start having headache and sore throat, early symptoms of COVID-19. So you swing by your nearby pharmacy to get swabbed. 8 days later when you finally get the results, you probably aren't even infectious anymore! 3/ #PIHchat
Another example. The day after you get your diagnosis, a contact tracer calls you. You provide the phone numbers of your close contacts. The CT calls them all. They all spend the next 3 days getting swabbed. One week later—still no results. 4/ #PIHchat
7-10 turnaround time for test results cripples contact tracing. It's impossible to get infectious people into isolation. You know what else happens? Doctors even stop ordering the test. What's the point if it takes 7-10 days to get the result? 5/ #PIHchat
In MA, there's huge differences between facilities.
Community health center that is sending out to Quest? 7-10 days.
Teaching hospital with its own lab? 4 hours.
6/ #PIHchat
Community health center that is sending out to Quest? 7-10 days.
Teaching hospital with its own lab? 4 hours.
6/ #PIHchat
There's a lot we can do to fix our testing system, but the underlying problem is the failure to suppress the virus. It doesn't matter how much capacity we build. The virus grows exponentially. @mtosterholm "We have a lot of human wood." 7/ #PIHchat
But the good thing? We can stop the virus by staying at home. It works in every country, every state, every city. It doesn't matter how much the virus has exploded or how many cases there are. It's like a reset button. When are we going to press it? END
Join the conversation with pandemic expert @nataliexdean using #PIHchat!
