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With a third increase in the coronavirus threatening much of the United States, public health experts across the country say there is not yet enough evidence available to keep the virus under control.
Some doctors and hospitals now offer rapid patient tests that can produce results in minutes. And in the coming weeks, big retail pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens will offer some kind of rapid test, the antigen test, which will hopefully give Americans more access to testing.
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“There is a general need for testing,” Gigi Kwik Gronvall, senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety, told NBC News.
Atlantic Magazine’s Covid Tracking Project estimates that around 30 million Covid-19 tests are performed each month. However, studies have found that the United States would need millions more (193 million per month according to one report) to be effective.
A major problem has been the lack of critical test materials that has plagued laboratories since the pandemic began.
“The supply chain has not met demand,” said Dr. Patrick Godbey, president of the College of American Pathologists. “We still can’t get enough reagents to run the tests we want to run. It’s not just about testing reagents, it’s also about swabs. ”
In response, the federal government is pushing for rapid or point-of-care testing instead of the gold standard polymerase chain reaction or PCR test, which requires samples to be sent to a laboratory for testing. your analysis and may take days to return. .
Two weeks ago, the Department of Health and Human Services began shipping Abbott Labs rapid antigen tests to the government. The test is the easiest to date because it does not require a machine and results take about 15 minutes. Some state health officials told NBC News that the tests will be used in nursing homes and schools.
“Overall, I say it’s a good start,” Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, said Friday when he called reporters. “But I am extremely frustrated that the federal government is continuing this position at this time, where its only strategy is to buy what is available through industry and companies in the private market.”
“Different places require different kinds of tests,” Gronvall said. “The most important feature is the speed with which it can deliver accurate results.”
However, accuracy has been a thorn in the rapid testing side, as seen this month when nearly 20 members of the Trump administration and campaign, including the president and the first lady, became infected with the virus. All employees and visitors to the White House are said to have undergone periodic rapid tests for Covid-19.
The problem is that rapid tests are not as sensitive as PCR tests. Every fourth result is false negative.
About a dozen rapid tests have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use. All of them are intended for patients experiencing symptoms as they have higher levels of the virus in their body.
“Point-of-care testing has its place and that has to be defined by the individual situation,” Godbey said. “He’s at the doctor’s office and comes in with a fever, along with symptoms that started five or seven days ago. The quick test has a place there. ”
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However, there are fears that, as these tests become more frequent, they could be used as a screening tool, much like the one used in the White House. This method failed after telling guests at a rose garden event last month that it did not require her to wear masks after receiving a negative rapid test result. At least a dozen of these guests contracted the virus.
“Negative results should not be taken as a guarantee of negativity or certainty,” said Dr. Christopher Polage, Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Duke University Health Systems.
A new study called BinaxNow that looked at Abbott’s antigen test found that it can serve as a complement to the PCR test. Although the study was small and the results had not yet been published or peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that of 26 people who tested positive for PCR, 15 were also identified on the test for Abbott. However, the researchers note that these 15 were the most contagious as they also had high levels of virus in their samples. Almost half of those 15 were asymptomatic.
“The breakdown of the back of this pandemic can be accelerated if we could and could perform a rapid test that would identify the people who are most contagious and require isolation, many of whom may be asymptomatic,” said study author, the Dr. Diane Havlir in a news post. “PCR remains the gold standard, but a strategic combination of these tests could be useful in public health settings where rapid results and knowledge of the risk of transmission on the day of the test are critical.”
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These were the details of the news. There is still not enough evidence of Covid-19 in the US … to this day. We hope we have been successful in providing you with all the details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alert system or one of our different systems to provide you with all the news.
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