Demand Rapid COVID-19 Testing

Written for Bacon’s Rebellion by James C. Sherlock.

Three days ago, I wrote the following:

Now it has turned out that by far the most effective and timely test for COVID-19 has been produced for point-of-care (physicians offices, clinics, etc.) testing, not for centralized test labs. That fact has left the hospitals and the administration collectively clueless. … Daily 50,000 of the FDA-approved COVID-19 tests that run on ID NOW are being shipped by Abbott. The test requires about 3 minutes to provide a confirmed positive, and less than 15 minutes to produce a confirmed negative. It is likely that the tests shipments are being directed to the hottest of the hot spots, but Virginians do not know if that is true or when and where they might be available here. Portions of Virginia itself will likely join hotspot lists shortly.

Later that same day Yahoo News reported:

The state of Georgia (had) joined forces with CVS Health to increase access to rapid coronavirus testing. Starting Monday (April 5), CVS will be operating drive-thru rapid coronavirus testing, offered by Abbott Laboratories, at a site on Georgia Tech’s campus. At full capacity, the site will be able to conduct up to 1,000 tests per day.

It is time for Virginians to stop asking and start demanding.

Each reader should contact his or her state delegate and senator and demand to know when we will see these tests in Virginia and ask why the Northam administration and VHHA continue to seem clueless about the existence of such tests, much less make them available to Virginians.

You can find contact information for your state representative here.

Here is a message example. Please send it either to their websites if that is where they take constituent inputs or to their offices or both:

Subject:  Rapid COVID-19 testing

Dear Senator ____ or Delegate ____, I am a constituent. We need help improving COVID-19 testing, and the Commonwealth seems to be far behind where we should be. 

By far the most effective and rapid test for COVID-19 has been produced by Abbott labs for point-of-care (physicians offices, urgent care clinics, etc.) testing, not for centralized test labs.

The Abbott ID NOW platform is small, lightweight (6.6 pounds) and portable (the size of a small toaster) and is already the most widely available molecular point-of-care testing platform in the U.S. today. It has been used for a long time for such things as testing for strep. 

It is statistically likely that about 450 of these platforms are available in Virginia today, but we do not know how many we actually have, where they are and whether or when they will have the Abbott COVID test modules to run on them.

Abbott is shipping 50,000 of the FDA-approved COVID-19 tests that run on Abbott’s ID NOW platform every day. The test requires about 3 minutes to provide a confirmed positive, and less that 15 minutes to produce a confirmed negative.

These facts have left Virginia’s state lab, the hospitals and thus the Northam administration collectively clueless. The state runs laboratory test platforms with 24- to 48-hour processing turnarounds, not point-of-care platforms with 15-minute turnarounds.

The state of Georgia has joined forces with CVS Health to increase access to rapid coronavirus testing. Starting Monday, April 5, CVS has been operating drive-thru rapid coronavirus testing using Abbott’s point-of-care tests at a site on Georgia Tech’s campus. At full capacity, the site will be able to conduct up to 1,000 tests per day.

Virginians do not know when or where they might be available here. Portions of Virginia itself will likely join hotspot lists shortly.

We demand answers.

These messages will explode in their inboxes. If their legislative assistants are alert, the members will act on them today.