Georgia put some COVID-19 testing on ‘pause’ to allow labs to catch up, a health official said
State and private labs in Georgia have more than doubled the total number of coronavirus tests they’ve processed in the last two weeks as officials work to determine just how many people are sick.
But increased sample collections, coupled with efforts needed to inform patients of their results and the need for supplies to process the tests, have overwhelmed labs across the state.
As a result, mobile testing at sites led by the Georgia Army National Guard and Augusta University is paused until Thursday in an effort to help labs catch up. Dr. Phillip Coule, the chief medical officer of Augusta University Health, first spoke with Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Grant Blankenship regarding the testing backlogs.
“The goal was to collect so many specimens and send it into the system that we have overloaded the labs. And that is currently the case,” Coule said. “And so we are taking a pause to some of our mobile testing to allow us to make sure that we’re caught up and that we are able to return results in a timely fashion, because the frustration created by delayed results is something we want to avoid.”
Increased testing
Since April 20, Georgia has more than doubled the number of coronavirus tests it’s completed, from 84,328 to more than 204,000 as of 10:25 a.m. May 6.
The COVID Mapping Project reports Georgia is 29th out of 50 states for testing per capita. It was once in the bottom 10. The state health department reports that a person could be tested multiple times for the coronavirus, meaning the test numbers don’t represent the number of people tested in Georgia.
Testing capacity has frustrated state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp.
“That’s a big leap from where we were,” Coule said in an interview with McClatchy. “As we test more people, we will find more cases. But we want to find those cases so they know that they are at risk. ...Understanding the prevalence of this disease is critical.”
The postponements do not affect drive-thru testing efforts, Coule said.
Instead, the pause applies to testing through Georgia Army National Guard mobile “strike teams” — 10 units of more than 200 members with the ability to test more than 1,500 people a day in hotspot areas.
The National Guard is partnering with Augusta University for portions of its coronavirus response, including a 24/7 operations center, according to a National Guard news release.
The total number of tests conducted is important, but there are still concerns about the process in Georgia, said Dr. Harry J. Heiman, a clinical associate professor at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health.
“The number of tests is an important metric, but only one of many that need to be followed,” he said. “There continues to be considerable day-day variation and ongoing concerns about sustainable testing capacity.”
Backlogs across Georgia
The testing backlogs are an issue throughout the state. Residents in Macon who were tested through a National Guard-affiliated event last week are still waiting for test results, and a planned testing event Wednesday in Macon was postponed, The Telegraph reports.
Results for coronavirus tests in the Atlanta area were also delayed, WSB TV reports.
The delayed results and postponed testing shows the state’s problems battling the novel coronavirus are shifting for the moment, Coule said.
Problems at the beginning of coronavirus testing centered around supplies, particularly with a lack of test swabs. Augusta University helped address that problem by 3D printing test swabs, he said.
Now as the state collects more samples, the supply of materials labs need to process the tests as well as coordinating the flow of information between partnered labs, Augusta University, and the patients have become bigger hurdles, Coule said.
“The big constraint is the reagents for the testing platform that have to come from the manufacturer,” he said. A reagent is a substance that acts on another during a chemical reaction. “The problem has become a limitation at the lab and beyond the lab — getting the results back to the individual. ...We’ve stressed those systems, and now, we’re fixing the difficulties we’re having with those systems.”
Transporting tests kits and completed samples from sites in rural Georgia to labs has also been a challenge, according to Georgia Department of Public Health spokeswoman Nancy Nydam. DPH now has 66 sample collection sites across the state.
“We are working with the health district on logistics to ensure they have the test kits they need and that specimens collected daily are picked up for transport to labs for processing,” she said. “The challenge has been that many of our sites are in more rural areas, so we have developed new courier routes to get to them.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Georgia put some COVID-19 testing on ‘pause’ to allow labs to catch up, a health official said."