A visit to the Children's National Hospital in the Washington, D.C. shows how doctors are trying to keep up with testing demands for children affected by COVID-19.
A coronavirus vaccine is still months away at a minimum, and public health officials are concerned that reopening businesses without the proper precautions and large gatherings, like this week's protests, may fuel a spike in infections. So testing is as important as it's ever been to navigating this pandemic.
DELANEY: So it's been one of the most challenging times for laboratories. I mean, in my entire career, we have done more new tests, bringing on new tests in the past two months than you usually do in a year. Usually in a lab, you would just have one kind of test for that disease. But because of the supply chain issues, we actually brought in as many different tests as we could because if any one test the company wasn't able to supply us with the supplies, we could still keep testing.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Five different kinds of tests all because of one virus. Children's has had to ramp up quickly. They first tested for COVID March 13.GARCIA-NAVARRO: But two and a half months in, so much time is still being spent on sourcing components for these tests. DELANEY: You put them in the coffee machine, and it makes one perfect cup of coffee. These rapid tests are like that. The cartridges are heavily manufactured with all the gene targets in there. So you just add the sample to it, pop it on, and it goes.ANTHONY FAUCI: There are a lot of things that I think we've learned and that we are correcting and going to correct.
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