Rise In U.S. Cases Far Surpasses Rise In Testing; Labs Struggle To Keep Up

The Associated Press: US Labs Buckle Amid Testing Surge; World Virus Cases Top 15M
Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are actually undercutting the pandemic response. With the U.S. tally of infections at 3.9 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves, dealing with a crushing workload. (Perrone, Webber and Sedensky, 7/22)

The New York Times: Spike in U.S. Cases Far Outpaces Testing Expansion
As coronavirus cases have surged in recent weeks, President Trump has repeatedly said the growing case count is a result of increased testing, not a worsening outbreak. An analysis by The New York Times, however, shows the rise in cases far outpaces the growth in testing. About 21,000 cases were reported per day in early June, when the positive test rate was 4.8 percent. As testing expanded, the positive test rate should have fallen. Even if it had stayed the same, there would have been about 38,000 cases reported each day. Instead, the positive test rate has nearly doubled, and more than 66,000 cases are now reported each day. (7/22)

FiveThirtyEight: Want A COVID-19 Test? It’s Much Easier To Get In Wealthier, Whiter Neighborhoods 
When the coronavirus outbreak threatened to rock Philadelphia’s predominantly Black neighborhoods, Dr. Ala Stanford knew that access to COVID-19 tests was going to be a problem. So she rented a van, loaded it up and headed to the areas of the city where residents needed tests the most. Every test conducted was free. (Kim, Vann, Bronner and Manthey, 7/22)

NPR: How An At-Home Test For COVID-19 Could Help Control The Pandemic 
Anybody who has waited for hours in line for a coronavirus test, or who has had to wait a week or more for results, knows there has to be a better way. In fact, the next generation of tests will focus on speed. But what should the Food and Drug Administration do with a rapid test that is comparatively cheap but much less accurate than the tests currently on the market? A test like that is ready to go up for FDA approval, and some scientists argue it could be valuable despite its shortcomings. (Harris, 7/22)

Reuters: Roche Says Military Planes Load Up COVID-19 Test Gear As Demand Soars
Swiss drugmaker Roche’s testing head said on Thursday that orders for equipment to process COVID-19 tests have soared to levels it would normally see over four to five years, as some governments dispatch military aircraft to pick up gear. “The orders we’ve gotten is as high as what we would normally sell in four to five years,” Diagnostics head Thomas Schinecker said. “We even had governments that flew in with military planes to pick up instruments, because they were in such need.” (7/23)

In testing news from Montana, Vermont, North Dakota and other states —

Kaiser Health News: States Search For Ways To Deal With COVID-19 Testing Backlogs 
States frustrated by private laboratories’ increasingly long turnarounds for COVID-19 test results are scrambling to find ways to salvage their testing programs. Montana said Wednesday that it is dropping Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s largest diagnostic testing companies. The Secaucus, New Jersey-based company had done all the state’s surveillance COVID-19 testing — drive-thru testing that moves from community to community to help track COVID’s spread. But it told state officials last week that it was at capacity and would be unable to accommodate more tests for two or three weeks. (Volz and Galewitz, 7/23)

Modern Healthcare: Airports Opening COVID Testing Centers As Travel Ticks Upward
With air travel on a slow but steady rise in recent months, airports have emerged as a locus for COVID testing. A number of governments and lab companies have launched SARS-CoV-2 testing sites at airports around the world, offering travelers and airport personnel an opportunity to determine their infection status with, in some cases, people testing negative able to avoid quarantines mandated by their destinations. (Bonislawski, 360Dx, 7/23)

AP: Montana Able To Expand Surveillance Testing For COVID
Montana has agreements to expand surveillance testing for COVID-19 a week after Gov. Steve Bullock said such testing would have to be put on hold because of a backlog at an out-of-state lab the state was using. “Surveillance testing of asymptomatic individuals is a powerful tool in helping slow the spread of the virus in our Montana communities,” Bullock said in a statement Wednesday, hours after the state announced two more deaths and 104 new cases of COVID-19. A lab at Montana State University will be able to process 500 tests per day, starting as early as next week, he said. (Hanson, 7/22)

Boston Globe: A Tale Of Two Tests: Vermont City Left Puzzled By Positive, Then Negative, COVID-19 Results
Lindsay Liebig would ultimately be one of 65 people who tested positive last week after completing the rapid antigen test offered at a private medical clinic in the heart Manchester, Vt., a town of less than 5,000. News of an outbreak set off alarms in a state that to-date had fared well in the pandemic, registering the second-fewest cases in the country. Many local restaurants and retailers quickly shut down. The Saturday farmers market was canceled. State officials with little information scrambled to answer questions from reporters and the public as to how where the outbreak began. But in Vermont, positive antigen tests — a relatively new way of detecting an active COVID infection — require confirmation by another test: a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test, the gold-standard used by the government, hospitals, and professional sports teams. Of the 65 people who’d received those positive antigen tests, 48 would ultimately test negative via PCR. Liebig was one of them. (Krueger, 7/22)

AP: More Coronavirus Testing Planned As College Students Return
North Dakota plans increased statewide testing for the coronavirus in the days leading up the reopening of the state’s 11 colleges and universities this fall, officials said Wednesday. North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott said he was optimistic face-to-face and online classes could resume on the planned Aug. 24 school start. “We’re confident we can move forward in about a month,” Hagerott said during Gov. Doug Burgum’s weekly COVID-19 briefing. (MacPherson, 7/22)