While the increase in coronavirus cases in the United States has amplified the need for timely testing, diagnostic companies continue to grapple with response times of several days or more to obtain coronavirus test results.
Some labs have attributed the longer waits to extreme demand and stress on supply chain testing. There are now more than 3.8 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, with tens of thousands of new infections every day.
Quest Diagnostics said in a statement Monday that the average response time has increased to seven days or more for the general population, and that a “small subset of patients” may experience waiting times of up to two weeks.
Prioritized patients, such as symptomatic and hospitalized health workers, get results in two days on average, the company said. Quest says it’s longer than the average one-day wait time priority patients had a week ago.
On Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized Quest to use its Covid-19 test with pooled samples, where samples from multiple patients are analyzed together, which the company says should help increase capacity.
But Quest also said the main factors they now face are the limits of the complex machines that perform the tests, as well as the limited supply of reagents, the chemicals used to conduct the tests.
US Assistant Secretary of Health Brett Giroir said on CNN’s “New Day” Monday that the average response time for tests in most states is longer than three days, although the average in 18 states it is two to three days.
“That is not optimal. We want to reduce that. It will be reduced, “said Giroir, adding that the reagent supply is” limited. “
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