Omicron surge creates shortage of COVID test kits in in NELA: Help is on the way — slowly
State health officials say the demand for rapid COVID-19 tests has outpaced the supply as the virus, led by the omicron variant, continues to surge throughout the state.
Region 8 Public Health Administrator Jeff Toms said the tests continue to trickle in.
"The state, we're still getting a shipment in and dividing them up amongst the nine regions," Toms said. "Region 8, that we cover in the Monroe region, are receiving some each week and we're working with local partners, dividing them up amongst the 12 parishes in Region 8 based on the populations of the parish."
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The Office of Public Health Region 8 covers the following parishes: Caldwell, East Carroll, Franklin, Jackson, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Richland, Tensas, Union, and West Carroll.
Friday afternoon, the Louisiana Department of Health confirmed 11,317 new cases, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state since the beginning of the pandemic to 1.8 million.
The state health department plans to tackle the testing shortage by partnering with the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) and each of the parish's Homeland Security directors to communicate with local communities to expedite testing kits.
"We've reached out to some of the fire stations and they're going to reach out to the mayor's offices and some of the elected officials to get their perspective on how to best get them out to their individual communities," Toms said. "It's a plan going forward but it's still going to be very thin on how much comes to the state based on the nationwide shortage of over-the-counter kits currently."
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Toms said the number of testing kits the region receives depends on what the state gets from the federal government.
"We could get as low as 1,000 one week," Toms said. "We could get maybe 5,000 the next, but it's going to be based on what the state gets. Last week or so, 3,000 came into the state but that's divided amongst nine regions."
The shortage of rapid testing kits is indefinite, Toms said, but there are other testing alternatives.
Toms said there is an adequate supply of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Although the tests are an accurate way to diagnose infectious diseases, Toms said they not in demand right now due to the 24 to 48–hour turnaround for results.
"It appears not to be a shortage of that," Toms said. "There are some clinics who can't even do the rapids on their own. I'm getting calls from clinics seeing if we can supply them their rapid tests just using clinics and we're not able to, we don't have the supply of that either."
The 11 parish clinics in Region 8 are currently equipped with rapid tests, Toms said.
COVID-19 testing: Free COVID test kits are available through a government website. Here's how to order the at-home tests.
Patient residents can request at-home COVID tests to be delivered to their homes through the U.S. Postal Service at covidtests.gov. According to the website, every home in the U.S. is eligible to order four free at-home COVID-19 tests. The tests are completely free. Orders will usually ship in 7-12 days.
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This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Here's how Region 8 public health is combatting COVID-19 test shortage
