Quest Diagnostics, the largest private medical testing company in the United States, released a letter about Monday noting that the average wait time for non-emergency coronavirus test results is currently at least seven days. The really scary part: Quest says the wait times will not be shortened as the United States continues to have the worst covid-19 outbreak in the world.
“We now have the capacity to perform up to 125,000 molecular diagnostic tests a day, approximately double our capacity 8 weeks ago,” Quest said in a letter. posted online, leading with the most positive news. “By the end of July, we hope to have the capacity to perform 150,000 molecular diagnostic tests per day.”
Running 125,000 tests a day may seem like a lot, and that’s about a sixth of all the tests done in the US every day, but that’s not even a fraction of the number that public health experts believe the US They should do to contain the virus.
The letter continues with the most distressing information, admitting that things are not going so well for people who want to be tested in a timely manner.
Despite this dramatic increase, the demand for evidence increases even faster. As a result, our average response time to report test results is just over 1 day for our priority 1 patients. However, our average response time for all other populations is 7 or more days, ” Quest said in a statement.
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The seven “or more” days leave plenty of room for maneuver for the actual average, but the most pressing question asked in this letter is who precisely qualifies as a “priority 1 patient”? According to Quest, it includes people who are going to have surgery, existing patients in the hospital, and symptomatic healthcare workers. Healthcare workers without any symptoms who want to be tested have to wait in line with the rest of us.
The letter finally reaches the worst news at the end, warning that the entire medical laboratory testing industry is struggling with an uncontrolled pandemic in the U.S.
“We want patients and healthcare providers to know that we will not be in a position to reduce our response times as cases of covid-19 continue to rise dramatically in much of the United States. This is not just a Quest problem. The increase in covid-19 cases affects the laboratory industry in general, “says the Quest letter.
The United States has identified at least 3.36 million coronavirus cases and more than 135,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. coronavirus tracker. Hot spots like Arizona, Texas and California have seen a dramatic increase in cases over the past week, with many hospitals running out of ICU beds, and Florida being the worst hit region right now, reporting a record number of cases every day. Florida identified 15,299 cases Sunday alone, a new record.
But even those numbers are considered severe subsets of the real problem. According to former FDA commission Scott Gottlieb, who appears frequently on CBS News and CNBC, the actual number of infections in the US is probably ten times higher than what states report every day, and that’s likely because states are simply reaching the maximum amount of tests they can perform. Using Gottlieb’s estimate, Florida likely had at least 150,000 cases on Sunday.
When doing a coronavirus test, it is vital to obtain a timely result to assess whether it should be isolated and to help delay the spread to your family, friends, and the general public. But many Americans have complained on social media about waiting at least 10 days for their results, and some people even wait up to 22 days to get results in Arizona. This new Quest Diagnostics announcement confirms that the average wait time for test results is currently over a week and will not be shortened soon.
Throughout February, March, and even April, several right-wing media and political figures promised that the United States would rise to the occasion and defeat the new coronavirus through innovative technologies that are only available in the United States. But the United States lags far behind other wealthy countries when it comes to fighting the disease, largely thanks to lack of planning by President Donald Trump, who believes the virus will magically “disappear” one day, even without intervention. human.
CNBC host Jim Cramer said on March 5 that the United States would not see a deadly pandemic like the one experienced by Italy because the United States’ health system was simply very superior.
“In any large proportion pandemic, including the incredible 1958 flu season, there are always a number of people dying abroad, and the public health system is so poor abroad,” Cramer told CBNC on 5 May. March.
“Obviously it is very bad in Italy,” added Cramer, which is simply not true.
Only 159 Americans had been infected and 11 had died in Washington and California. at the time. And states had done very little testing, unlike other wealthy countries they had done before March 5. The United States lost at least a month trying to develop its own test in February, instead of using the test developed by the World Health Organization, which the rest of the world used to quickly resist its test regimens.
Depressingly, Florida had conducted only 29 tests before March 5, as Gizmodo informed at the time. Colorado had done only 58 tests. Iowa had conducted eight tests. And Americans are still paying the price for that slow test response.
And former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney even said February 28 that “socialized medicine” in Europe would hamper the continent’s ability to respond to the crisis and that people could receive much faster treatment in the United States thanks to the free market capitalism.
“We know how to do this,” Mulvaney told CPAC 2020 about managing health care during a pandemic. “You look at some of the European countries, and we sit down and go … if you’re already waiting in line, five or six weeks for something, and now a couple hundred people are standing in front of you.” in line or a thousand people line up for coronavirus, what does it do to your health system?
“They are already tense, because socialized medicine doesn’t work, and especially it doesn’t work in crises like this,” Mulvaney continued.
That turned out to be bullshit, as Mulvaney went to CNBC on Monday with an op-ed to complain that his own family was forced to wait. about a week for test results:
I know it is not popular to speak in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. My son was recently tested; We had to wait 5 to 7 days to get results. My daughter wanted to get tested before visiting her grandparents, but they told her she did not qualify. That is simply inexcusable at this time of the pandemic.
Mulvaney did not point out the nasty comments he made in February, nor did he admit he was wrong.
Obviously, there is no easy local solution to the coronavirus pandemic, so each country that has successfully curbed the spread has employed solutions from the highest levels of government. President Trump has shown that he is simply not interested in stopping the spread, attributing responsibility to private companies like Quest Diagnostics to fix the problem. Quest obviously can’t fix this on its own, just like the free market Capitalism in general cannot solve any public health crisis alone. That is not necessarily Quest’s fault. You are simply doing what will make you the most money.
Quest Diagnostics reported revenue of $ 7.73 billion in 2019. The Quest share price is up to 9.4% since last year.
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