Some states have seen a desperately needed increase in their bandwidth to test for the coronavirus in recent days — but the US' testing capacity still lags behind other nations.
The U.S., in contrast, has struggled to test barely double that in total. As of Monday, NBC News estimated that there have been at least 33,000 tests done, based on figures listed on about 40 state public health department websites across the country. "The system is not really geared to what we need right now," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified in a House hearing Thursday."That is a failing. Let's admit it.
Both Quest and LabCorp said in statements to NBC News that they will each have the ability to perform more than 10,000 tests per day by the end of the week and 20,000 tests per day by the end of March. The trade association both the labs belong to, the American Clinical Laboratory Association, said in a statement that"assuming there are no delays or shortages of necessary materials and supplies, commercial capacity is expected to exceed 280,000 tests per week by April 1.
"Public health labs are not intended for large scale diagnostic testing — their job is for surveillance and other public health work — so we need more clinical laboratories on board to provide testing ordered by health care providers," he said."Each day, there are additional clinical labs able to test and overall national testing capacity improves. But this will take time to meet the demand.
The worst thing is a person walking into an emergency room: If you're positive, you infect other people. If you are negative, you may get infected by walking into the emergency room."Friday in New Rochelle, where there has been a cluster of cases. Cuomo said Monday the site ran smoothly and beat the 15-minute allotted time it expected to take to test each patient; he is setting up more in other areas of the state, including on Staten Island and Long Island.
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