More labs in Minnesota and across the nation are testing for COVID-19, but it’s still tough to get a test for the deadly coronavirus unless you’re critically ill.
That needs to change if life is ever going to return to some semblance of normal.
“There isn’t any way, soon after this, if we don’t have a vaccine or therapeutics, without massive testing, that you are going to see the large gatherings again,” Gov. Tim Walz acknowledged this week.
Hopefully, the shortages that are limiting screening now can be remedied.
It’s no longer a lack of tests themselves or the chemicals needed to process them. Instead, hospitals and clinics are short on the protective gear they need to keep workers safe and the swabs to collect samples.
Once those shortages are addressed, Minnesota’s state lab and health care providers should be able to screen thousands of samples in a 24-hour period.
MAYO CLINIC RUSHES TO HELP
Some of that is thanks to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where doctors scrambled to develop a COVID-19 test in record time.
“We’ve been ramping up now for several weeks,” said Dr. Bobbi Pritt, a professor of clinical microbiology at the Mayo Clinic. “We saw what was happening worldwide, and we realized we are going to have to act locally and make our own test.”
Developing tests for new viruses is something Mayo does routinely. But it didn’t have the six months it typically takes to create a test. A team working with Pritt’s colleague Dr. Matthew Binnicker did it in about three weeks.
“For us, that is completely unprecedented,” Pritt said. “To get a test in three weeks was just amazing.”
The test Mayo Clinic developed had limits, so it is also using an FDA-approved test by the pharmaceutical company Roche. Mayo officials said they soon hope to be able to screen 5,000 samples a day.
The new capacity to test from Mayo and other labs can be seen in the numbers released each day at 11 a.m. by the Minnesota Department of Health. Completed tests doubled on March 25 when the state started reporting results from private labs.
RELATED: This is how Minnesota health workers hunt the coronavirus
PLENTY OF CHALLENGES REMAIN
As of Friday, only about 14,000 Minnesotans had been screened, and the state had 398 cases. Walz and health leaders admit those numbers would be much higher if testing was more widely available.
Like the state, Mayo is focusing who it tests, concentrating on critically ill and high-risk patients as well as medical workers. The state is using those same guidelines and including residents of communal homes, such as long-term care.
Mayo is also using some testing capacity to help other states in the Upper Midwest and where the virus is taking the heaviest toll, Pritt said.
“Knowing the national shortage, we have to prioritize,” she said.
The Mayo testing lab currently has enough materials not to hamper testing. But officials there, just like at the state lab, are concerned about the long-term supply chain.
Mayo staffers are shifting equipment around and working to craft some of their own materials in order to meet demand, Pritt said. Hospital leaders meet daily to inventory supplies, and some stocks are low.
“We are doing everything we can, working around the clock, and continuing to expand our testing capabilities,” Pritt said. “We may not be able to meet all of (the demand), but together as a state we can come together and meed the needs of our population. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us, but we have a lot of great groups working together.”
