May 14, 2020 — Getting a diagnostic test for the coronavirus is now easier than when the pandemic first started. There are fewer restrictions on who gets tested and more places to get tested.
Places such as Los Angeles are providing free testing to any resident who wants it, and in many states, health officials are urging anyone who wants a test to get one. It is all a shift from limiting tests to people with symptoms, people in high-risk categories such as those over 65, those with health conditions, or front-line health care workers.“There is more testing capacity across all states. Even a month ago, people would show up with classic symptoms with COVID-19 and be told to go home and self-isolate. Now, at my hospital, when anyone comes in with any symptoms, they can get tested, the guidelines are different than a month ago,” says Ingrid Katz, MD, associate faculty director of Harvard University’s Global Health Institute and an associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Rapid diagnostic tests have also improved the turnaround time for results. Brigham and Women’s has its own microbiology lab that can produce test results in a few hours. Medical device manufacturer Abbott is producing ID NOW COVID-19 “point-of-care” tests and devices for commercial and public health laboratories that diagnose COVID-19 where and when patients are tested and produce results in less than 13 minutes.
Despite the developments, one recent Harvard study found that fewer than 10 states have done enough testing to safely reopen. But more communities have testing sites now than they did in March. Nearly every state has a drive-thru testing site, and 33 states offer testing through major drugstores in 240 locations, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett P. Giroir, MD, said at a May 12 Senate hearing on COVID-19.
Widespread Testing Needed
While progress has been made, top health officials and public health experts agree that more widespread testing for infected patients is the key to reopening society.
To date, more than 9 million tests have been done nationwide. The federal government, working with state officials, has set a national goal of reaching 12.9 million tests in the next 4 weeks, Giroir told senators. While the U.S. leads the world in the number of tests performed, it trails at least 30 other countries for the number of tests done per each million people, according to a statistics tracking website.
Testing is a vital part of any pandemic fight, says Eduardo Sanchez, MD, chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association and a former Texas state health commissioner.
“It’s crucial of course to help treat, isolate or hospitalize people who are infected,” he wrote in a column on the association’s website. “Testing also is important in the bigger public health picture on mitigation efforts, helping investigators characterize the prevalence, spread and contagiousness of the disease.”
It also provides important information for our future, he said.
“When we look back at what will be the first wave of COVID-19 in the United States, testing data will help us develop a full picture of the epidemiology and course of this disease,” Sanchez said. “The data can provide important puzzle pieces for stopping or slowing the disease in the future.”
Giroir, meanwhile, told senators he estimates that the nation would be able to do 40 million to 50 million tests in the fall, “taking every aspect of development, authorization, manufacturing, and supply chain into consideration.”
Meanwhile, Ashish Jha, MD, a director at Harvard’s Global Health Institute, told the House Select Subcommit