Toll mounts, but Americans shun COVID-19 tests

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August 7, 2020

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Toll mounts, but Americans shun COVID-19 tests

Source: AP | 00:08 UTC+8 August 7, 2020 |

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US testing for the coronavirus is dropping even as infections remain high and the death toll rises by more than 1,000 a day, a worrisome trend that officials attribute largely to Americans getting discouraged over having to wait hours to get a test and days or weeks to learn the results.

An Associated Press analysis found that the number of tests per day slid 3.6 percent over the past two weeks, with the count falling in 22 states. That includes places like Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri and Iowa where the percentage of positive tests is high and continuing to climb, an indicator that the virus is still spreading uncontrolled.

Amid the crisis, some health experts are calling for the introduction of a different type of test that would yield results in a matter of minutes and would be cheap and simple enough for millions of Americans to test themselves — but would also be less accurate.

“There’s a sense of desperation that we need to do something else,” said Dr Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute.

Widespread testing is considered essential to managing the outbreak as the US approaches a mammoth 5-million confirmed infections and more than 157,000 deaths out of over 700,000 worldwide.

Testing demand is expected to surge again this fall, when schools reopen and flu season hits, most likely outstripping supplies and leading to new delays and bottlenecks.

Some of the decline in testing over the past few weeks was expected after backlogged commercial labs urged doctors to concentrate on their highest-risk patients. But some health and government officials are seeing growing public frustration and waning demand.

Jessica Moore of rural Newberry, South Carolina, said that after a private lab lost her COVID-19 test results in mid-July, she had to get re-tested at a pop-up site organized by the state.

Moore and her husband arrived early on a Saturday morning at the site, a community center, where they waited for two hours for her test. Moore watched in the rear-view mirror as people drove up, saw the long line of cars, and then turned around and left.

“If people have something to do on a Saturday and they want to get tested, they’re not going to wait for two hours in the South Carolina heat for a virus test, especially if they don’t have any symptoms,” Moore said.

The number of confirmed infections in the US has topped 4.7 million, with new cases running at nearly 60,000 a day on average.

US testing is built primarily on highly sensitive molecular tests that detect the genetic code of the coronavirus.

Although the test is considered the gold standard for accuracy, experts increasingly say the country’s overburdened lab system is incapable of keeping pace with the outbreak and producing results within two or three days, the time frame crucial to isolating patients and containing the spread of the virus.

“They’re doing as good a job as they possibly can do, but the current system will not allow them to keep up with the demand,” said Mara Aspinall of Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions.

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Toll mounts, but Americans shun COVID-19 tests

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