NEW ORLEANS — If you’ve gotten a coronavirus test lately, how long did it take your test results to come back? We’re hearing from some about long wait times lately.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Brobson Lutz says test results are taking a long time because of the high demand on commercial labs like Quest and Labcorp.
“The number of tests that these labs get has just grown exponentially, and they don’t have the equipment, the solutions, the technicians to handle all of them,” said Dr. Brobson Lutz.
One patient has been waiting for results for 14 days.
Dr. Lutz says that’s affecting his ability to practice medicine.
“Well I feel like a meteorologist who is trying to predict the weather based on radar from two weeks ago.”
The Louisiana Department of Health agrees that is “unacceptably long” and says the backlog is from the high demand nationwide. Dr. Lutz says not only does that affect patients, treatment and quarantining but
it deprives the city and state of important information.
“If I were a decision maker that had anything to do with when do we open schools in the community, I would want the most current data. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with data that was two weeks old and stale,” he said.
When schools open and students and athletes start getting tested more frequently, will this add to the backlog? Dr. Lutz says those using hospital labs get a quick turnaround in results but those may not be as accurate as the commercial labs. And when home test kits start being used that presents problems too.
“Home testing kits will allow people to get answers quick, just like a home pregnancy test, but again with a home testing kit the public health authorities lose all their data,” explained Dr. Lutz.
And when test results do come from labs, in order to get a more realistic picture of community spread, Dr. Lutz says the state now has to sort them all out, not by the date the results came back, but by when the nose swab was actually taken.
We asked Jefferson Parish Schools what its plan was for students and teachers who test positive. They referred us to six bullet points on their website here:
Given levels of COVID-19 in our communities, we expect that some students and employees will get COVID-19 throughout the school year.
Students, families, and employees should notify the school or their immediate supervisor if they test positive for COVID-19.
Students or employees who have COVID-19 should stay home and remain isolated until they have recovered and are determined to no longer be infectious by their doctor.
We will communicate with employees and parents of students who were in close contact with the affected COVID-19 individual.
Schools will ensure continuity of education for students who are quarantined.
Rolling closures of individual classes and/or school closures may be necessary based on clusters of positive COVID-19 cases.
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