{"id":155831,"date":"2020-12-11T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=155831"},"modified":"2021-09-28T08:56:38","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:56:38","slug":"slower-covid-turnarounds-californians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_ko\/health\/coronavirus\/2020\/12\/slower-covid-turnarounds-californians\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID tests lagging: Slower turnaround times creeping back for Californians"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

In summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

The average turnaround time for COVID-19 test results rose 30% in November as people flocked to test sites before Thanksgiving. Pressure on labs is expected to intensify.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Seven days a week, San Francisco\u2019s public health laboratory operates until midnight. Workers are exhausted, their director says. And still, the COVID-19 specimens keep coming in their little plastic tubes, with test results expected quickly to help manage California\u2019s alarming surge of infections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab was set up earlier in the pandemic to handle 700 COVID-19 specimens each day; now it\u2019s receiving about 2,000, said the lab\u2019s director, Godfred Masinde. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been given more than we can handle,\u201d said Masinde, who also is president of the California Association of Public Health Laboratory Directors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problems with COVID testing<\/a> are resurfacing across California as turnaround times for test results climb once again after a summer of frustrating delays. Many labs have been slammed with record numbers of specimens as public health officials expanded test sites and hours and Californians flocked to get tested before Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average turnaround time for test results has risen by 30% from the first week in November to the last week, or from 1.3 days to 1.7 days, according to state public health data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may not sound like much, but public health experts say it\u2019s critical for COVID-19 test results to be reported within one to two days, because longer delays mean that infected people may unknowingly spread the disease to others before they can isolate at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the middle of our surge, our testing capacity is getting stretched again even though we have doubled our capacity.\u201d<\/p>dr. erica pan, former acting state health officer<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State health officials monitor test turnaround times closely, publicly posting a dashboard that tracks performance of the many commercial, hospital and government labs that collectively process up to 300,000 specimens<\/a> every day. In the last week of November, 78% of test results were returned within two days on average, compared to 89% in the first week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the middle of our surge, our testing capacity is getting stretched again even though we have doubled our capacity,\u201d said Dr. Erica Pan, former acting state health officer said last week at a UCSF COVID-19 briefing<\/a>. \u201cSlow testing turnaround is happening again.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

California has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to boost the state\u2019s laboratory capacity, contracting with commercial labs and building a massive new PerkinElmer laboratory in Southern California. That lab, in Valencia, was supposed to help ease the burden on other labs, but it\u2019s still getting up and running. In the last week of November, nearly a third of its tests took three or more days to process and return results, despite the 24- to 48-hour turnaround mandated in its contract<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, some large commercial labs like Curative, in San Dimas, are managing to keep up with the onslaught of specimens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others, including giants LabCorp and Quest, are buckling under the strain. In the first week of November, those two labs returned results<\/a> for 90% and 72% of their tests, respectively, within two days. But by the end of the month, as their caseloads rose by about one-third, LabCorp was only able to return<\/a> 37% of its tests within two days; Quest reported only 31% of tests within two days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>