Coronavirus testing declined more than 30 percent over the last week despite rising infection rates in many localities and the Trump administration’s efforts to increase testing across the country.
Commercial labs in the U.S., which only recently were overwhelmed with samples to test, are now waiting on new samples as testing capacity goes unused, Politico reported Tuesday. The American Clinical Laboratory Association, whose labs handle about two-thirds of the country’s coronavirus tests, reported that the daily number of samples commercial labs analyze declined from 108,000 on April 5 to 75,000 on April 12.
“ACLA members have now eliminated testing backlogs, and have considerable capacity that is not being used,” ACLA President Julie Khani informed Politico. “We stand ready to perform more testing and are in close communication with public health partners about ways we can support additional needs.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Health of Human Services has also documented a drop in testing across the country. However, the Association of Public Health Laboratories said it has not experienced a decline in testing.
The drop may have resulted from CDC testing guidelines, which prioritized the testing of those most at risk to the disease, including the elderly, hospital workers, and people who have been hospitalized. It is unclear whether the restrictions will be loosened so more people can be tested, a crucial step towards reopening the economy as officials make calls on when it is safe for social distancing measures to be relaxed.
Early attempts at widespread testing were plagued by logistical difficulties as medical testing companies admitted they became overwhelmed with a backlog of tests to analyze, forcing patients and doctors to wait to obtain a test.
Early rounds of test kits distributed by the CDC were defective, causing further delays in testing capacity that continued until the virus was already widespread around the country.