Sick Americans face long waits for coronavirus test results with labs overwhelmed by the massive increase in infections across the country, medical test executives say.
Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, two of the nation’s largest clinical laboratory operators, say they cannot add testing capacity fast enough to keep up with the breakneck pace at which COVID-19 is spreading.
The resulting cumulative delay means some patients have to wait more than a week to find out if they have the virus, delays that may not improve until the disease is under control, according to the companies.
“We need all states to make sure that we are doing everything we can to better control the virus,” LabCorp CEO Adam Schechter told CNBC on Tuesday. “If we can do that, we can have the evidence we need.”
Both LabCorp and Quest say they can reverse in-patient testing with COVID-19 in about a day or two. But LabCorp is taking an average of three to five days to return the results to anyone outside of a hospital despite the fact that it can perform 165,000 tests per day, Schechter told CNBC.
The average Quest response time for such patients is more than seven days, although it can range from just a couple of days to two weeks, according to a Monday press release. The company says it has the capacity to perform 130,000 diagnostic tests a day.
“We would double our capacity tomorrow … but it is not the labs that are the bottleneck,” Quest executive vice president James Davis told the Financial Times. “[It] it is our ability to obtain physical machines and, more importantly, our ability to feed those machines with chemical reagents. “
Both firms reportedly fear that arrears may worsen in the fall, when the demand for tests could increase further as children return to school and seasonal flu takes hold of it.
Quest will not be able to double its relevant testing capacity in the next three months before the flu season, Davis told the Financial Times. He added that “other solutions need to be found” aside from nasal swab tests such as those used to detect both the coronavirus and the flu.
“I think we have to be very thoughtful as we move forward in the fall. I am concerned about that. But we have to see it holistically, “Schechter told CNBC.” … We have to do tests, and we have to have the response time in two or three days to have the effective ability to track and trace the people who are sick or have been exposed to people. “
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