| Susan Butler-Wu's community hospital laboratory in Los Angeles ran its first Covid-19 test just over a week ago, and well over a month after the deadly virus was known to be spreading in California. It was a big moment. Across the U.S., testing has been slow to ramp up, leaving commercial labs backlogged and overwhelmed. Often patients at her hospital waited as long as 12 days for results. Now, it would be possible to get results in less than a day. Butler-Wu said she "pretty much cried." But her woes didn't end there. Now Butler-Wu's lab is faced with another widespread issue: a dearth of the supplies to conduct and process tests. Fighting for these resources is akin to "The Hunger Games," she said in an interview. In the U.S., every step of the testing landscape presents new hurdles for strapped hospitals, test manufacturers and laboratories. As soon as one crisis appears to dissipate, it's on to the next. A survey of 323 hospitals conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General found that many hospitals faced severe shortages of testing supplies and frequently waited a week or longer for results. Those issues, the survey found, further strained already scarce resources like hospital beds and personal protective equipment.  Access the full report here. Without a robust testing infrastructure, loosening directives for people to shelter in place may still be far off. "This isn't unique to just California," said Butler-Wu. "This is everywhere." The situation, dire as it is, has prompted some creative solutions in labs across the country, from stockpiling different kinds of equipment to using chemicals intended for other purposes to process tests. Some labs are even attempting to clinically validate Q-tips. "Necessity is the mother of invention," said Kim Hanson of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "Folks are trying a lot of different things." —Kristen V. Brown and Emma Court | 
Post a Comment