Getting a COVID-19 test? You could wait weeks for a result, as Florida labs struggle with volume
Labs are struggling to keep up with the increased demand for coronavirus tests and surging number of COVID-19 cases in Florida.
After nearly four months of testing, some labs in South Florida and elsewhere processing coronavirus tests say they were not prepared to handle the volume of tests currently being administered. As a result, people are facing higher average wait times — sometimes up to two weeks — to get their results.
Some labs are cutting back on the sites they service or dropping private practitioners to prioritize amid the high demand. Many South Florida residents say they are waiting too long for such critical test results. They share the same story: they went to get tested, they were swabbed and told to expect results within two to five days, but then they didn’t hear back. They were left in limbo, waiting to find out if they had the virus for days or even weeks longer than that.
Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged the problem at a news conference in Jacksonville on Thursday, pointing to the inflated number of tests.
“I think at the end of March, we were like 100,000 [tests] a day, maybe somewhere in that range as a country. Now we’re at 650,000, and we may even hit 700,000 tests in a day,” DeSantis said. “The problem with that has been the lab turnaround is just getting backed up.”
Labs without resources
Erin Evans was tested at the end of June in Miramar with her husband and two sons after her husband was exposed to the virus. On Friday, it had been 12 days, and her family’s results were still not in. She’s been quarantined at home with her kids, and she’s growing increasingly frustrated.
“If I can’t go to work, I can’t get paid,” said Evans, who works in a dental office. “We can’t go anywhere. There’s just a lot of anxiety.”
Evans’ test is being processed by BioCollections Worldwide, a Miami-based lab that was contracted to serve four state-run testing sites in Broward County. But, BioCollections CEO Sixto Pacheco said he had to pull services from all four of those sites on June 29, because his lab couldn’t keep up with the projected demand.
“I cannot put myself in a situation that I won’t be able to deliver,” Pacheco said.
When state officials anticipated the testing volume would more than double, Pacheco said he knew it was time for BioCollections to stop running tests from the government-run sites in Broward, although the company still processes tests for some privately run sites.
Other labs were assigned to those formerly processed by BioCollections, but Florida Division of Emergency Management officials did not answer specific questions regarding BioCollections.
Pacheco said he’s aware that there were delays during the last days his lab was servicing those sites, and his team is working to catch up. The delays, Pacheco said, are a result of allocation issues. There weren’t enough reagents, or chemicals to do the test, available to process the amount of tests he had.
“If I can’t put reagents in the machine, I can’t run tests,” Pacheco said. “This is not a problem of the state, it’s a problem of allocation. It’s a variable the laboratories can’t control when so many people are getting tested in such an unprecedented manner.”
The problem isn’t isolated to BioCollections.
Dr. Shahrad Mabourakh, a private practitioner in Tamarac, said LabCorp notified him that it would no longer accept tests from his practice because of the high volume of tests the lab was processing from other sites. Mabourakh, who mainly practices geriatric medicine with about 800 patients, said he only administers two to three tests a week.
A LabCorp spokeswoman wrote in an emailed statement that the demand exceeds its testing capacity, and the lab is prioritizing which providers will receive kits.
“We are working with providers to meet their demand, however, the demand from providers exceeds our capacity, supplies and equipment at this time,” the statement read. “LabCorp is prioritizing its supply of COVID-19 test kits to providers with an urgent need to test hospitalized patients. For other providers, LabCorp is distributing tests at quantities similar to levels they have received from LabCorp previously.”
Mabourakh said he’s frustrated by LabCorps’ decision to no longer accept tests from his practice, especially when many of his patients are those most vulnerable to the virus.
“Why don’t we have proper testing?” Mabourakh asked. “I’m on the front line, I’m a soldier in the fight, and I don’t have any bullets.”
‘I cannot be the only person'
Kerry Phillips was tested at a “pop-up,” temporary testing site, at her church in Lauderdale Lakes. It took 17 days to get results for Phillips and her daughter, thankfully negative. Phillips said the long wait times make her question the number of cases being reported by state officials.
On Friday, state officials reported 11,433 new cases, just 25 cases shy of the one-day record set on July 4. The surging cases are accompanied with an increased number of test since Thursday, as 64,356 new tests were reported by the state.
“You see all these cases and it makes me wonder, are these current numbers or are these people, like me, who were tested two weeks ago?” Phillips said. “How valid are these numbers?”
She said she’s been diligent about staying home since the beginning of the pandemic, but worries about others not being as cautious and spreading the virus during the long wait time.
“I cannot be the only person in Broward County that this has happened to,” Phillips said. “I don’t know if I just slipped through the cracks. I don’t know, it just makes me lose a little faith.”
And no, Phillips isn’t the only person in Broward County experiencing longer wait times. In fact, she joins most of the state and some of the rest of the country facing these longer waits. At the Palm Beach County Commission meeting Tuesday morning, director of the county department of health Alina Alonso, said that county-wide, the average turnaround time was between nine and 10 days.
“That is way too long,” Alonso said. “We have been trying to talk to the corporate headquarters of the corporate labs, LabCorp, Quest, you know, the big people that are doing a lot of the testing to try to get them to produce more test results, more quickly.”
The problem with these long wait times is that not everyone is staying home while they await results. The longer they wait for a result, the more people they’re in contact with and potentially infecting. This makes it even harder for contact tracers to track down everyone an infected person has been in contact with.
“It’s no fault of the people doing the contact tracing, but when you have that long period of time, you cannot do this properly,” Alonso said.
Quest, another major testing lab, has also been experiencing longer delivery time.
In a statement posted Monday, Quest wrote that the lab was experiencing national delays in turnaround time. At the end of June, the average turnaround time was three to five days.
“Since June 29, demand has continued to rise nationwide, particularly in the South, Southwest and West regions of the country, outpacing our capacity,” the statement read. “As a result, the average turnaround time for reporting test results is now 1 day for priority 1 patients and 4-6 days for all other populations.”
At the news conference Thursday, DeSantis said the state will try to get contracts with labs that have the capacity to turn around in 48 to 72 hours.
Florida Division of Emergency Management spokesman Jason Mahon said the division is launching a self-swab pilot program at select testing sites. This drive-though lane will be reserved for symptomatic individuals, cutting down on their wait time, and the samples will be sent to separate labs, allowing them to receive their results faster, Mahon said.
If the pilot goes well, the program will be implemented to all state-run sites.
“When the tests are taking a long time to get turned around, if you’re asymptomatic, what are you supposed to do?” DeSanits said. “Stay home and wait? ... Then if you’re symptomatic, obviously, you need to know whether you have coronavirus or you have something else.”
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