After struggling to ramp up coronavirus testing, the U.S. can now screen several million people daily, thanks to a growing supply of rapid tests. But the boom comes with a new challenge: keeping track of the results.
All U.S. testing sites are legally required to report their results, positive and negative, to public health agencies. But state health officials say many rapid tests are going unreported, which means some new COVID-19 infections may not be counted.
And the situation could get worse, experts say. The federal government is shipping more than 100 million of the newest rapid tests to states for use in public schools, assisted living centers and other new testing sites.
READ | China Extends Emergency Use of its Coronavirus Vaccines to Three More Cities
The cities of Yiwu, Ningbo and Shaoxing are targeting key groups with urgent need for vaccinations against COVID-19 following the city of Jiaxing, state-run Global Times quoted another daily, The Paper, as reporting on Saturday.
No New Cases in Mizoram | No new coronavirus cases were reported in Mizoram over the last 24 hours, while 3 patients recovered in the state. Total number of positive cases in the state stand at 2,253. The tally includes 105 active patients and 2,253 discharged cases. No death reported in the state till date.
READ | Eye on Festive Season, Govt Panel Warns of 26 Lakh Cases a Month due to Laxity, Non-adherence to Norms
The government panel has also said that if norms are adhered to, there is a possibility of the pandemic being controlled by early next year.
READ | Nine Months Into the Pandemic, Govt Admits Community Transmission, Says 'Limited to Some States & Districts'
The admission came at a time when several states, the latest being West Bengal, speaking about having entered the third stage of the pandemic, that is community transmission.
READ | Kerala Paying Price for Laxity in Covid Norms during Onam, Other States Must Draw Lesson: Health Minister
The Health Minister also refuted China's claims that the origin of the novel coronavirus could have been any other place in the world than Wuhan. "There is no evidence to validate the claims that the outbreak occurred at multiple points globally," he said, adding that Wuhan remains recognised as the site where the first coronavirus case was reported.
READ | Pollution May Make Coronavirus More Infectious, Pose 'New Challenges' for Recovered Patients: Experts
According to doctors, respiratory illnesses like viral influenza increase with a spike in pollution levels as poor air quality leads to inflammation in the lungs making it more vulnerable for the virus to penetrate.
Mumbai Metro Gives Sneak Peak Before Reopening Services | Mumbai Metro to resume operations from tomorrow after months of lockdown; preparations underway.
Keeping all sanitation protocols in mind, we’re ready to welcome back Mumbaikars from tomorrow with a safe, secure and hygienic manner. Here's a sneak peek of what your new metro journeys will look like. #YourMetroSafeMetro #MetroSeChalonaMumbai pic.twitter.com/zkxPVjutTZ
— Mumbai Metro (@MumMetro) October 18, 2020
'Long Covid' Linked to Organ Impairment in Young People Without Pre-existing Conditions: Study | Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have assessed more than 200 people infected with the novel coronavirus and found that there was significant evidence of heart, lung, liver and pancreas impairment four months post-Covid-19 in young individuals without risk factors or pre-existing disease. According to the researchers, including Sandeep Kapur from Mayo Clinic Healthcare, the average age of the participants was 44, and they completed the assessments 105-160 days after initial symptoms. They said the prevalence of pre-existing conditions such as obesity and hypertension was low among the participants, and only 18 per cent of the individuals had been hospitalised with Covid-19.
READ | Coronavirus Pandemic Has Peaked in India, Around 30% Population has Developed Antibodies, Claims Govt Panel
The panel used the real-time dataset to make forecasts on the transmission, to gauge effect of the lockdown, migrations and also project future scenarios based on the unlocking measures being followed…
As tourism industry opens up in Goa, popular pubs have been seen flouting Covid-19 norms. From unregulated parties to no social distancing being maintained, it has led to a massive fear that cases could increase in the coastal state. Most importantly, tourists seen without masks and no checks being done by the local district administration.
In Pics | Sabarimala Shrine Reopens Amid Rising Coronavirus Cases in Kerala
Around seven months after it was closed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the doors of Sabarimala temple were open for devotees from October 16, albeit with certain restrictions.
Mumbai Monorail services resume, months after they were stopped in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.
Mumbai Monorail services resume, months after they were stopped in the wake of #COVID19 pandemic.
— ANI (@ANI) October 18, 2020
"We've developed internal SOP. 'No mask-no entry' is being followed. Services will continue from 7:03-11:40 am & 4:03-9:24 pm," Rohan Salukhe, a senior official of the services says pic.twitter.com/zVxKX3hl7c
I have decided to keep my celebrations subdued. There is so much suffering across the world due to the pandemic. We must all let charity take precedence, donate with a large heart to the underprivileged. Find poor people in your neighbourhood. Buy their children new clothes, sweets and articles of need, you'll feel good. As we worship Maa Shakti in her nine avatars, I hope to see more empowered women and a society free of discrimination and atrocities against women: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, in his 'Sunday Samvaad'.
“Schools certainly don’t have the capacity to report these tests,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “If it’s done at all it’s likely going to be paper-based, very slow and incomplete.”
Early in the outbreak, nearly all U.S. testing relied on genetic tests that could only be developed at high-tech laboratories. Even under the best circumstances, people had to wait about two to three days to get results. Experts pushed for more “point-of-care” rapid testing that could be done in doctors offices, clinics and other sites to quickly find people who are infected, get them into quarantine and stop the spread.
Beginning in the summer, cheaper, 15-minute tests — which detect viral proteins called antigens on a nasal swab — became available. The first versions still needed to be processed using portable readers. The millions of new tests from Abbott Laboratories now going out to states are even easier to use: they’re about the size of a credit card and can be developed with a few drops of chemical solution.
Federal health officials say about half of the nation’s daily testing capacity now consists of rapid tests.
Large hospitals and laboratories electronically feed their results to state health departments, but there is no standardized way to report the rapid tests that are often done elsewhere. And state officials have often been unable to track where these tests are being shipped and whether results are being reported.
In Minnesota, officials created a special team to try and get more testing data from nursing homes, schools and other newer testing sites, only to be deluged by faxes and paper files.
“It’s definitely a challenge because now we have to do many more things manually than we were with electronic reporting,” said Kristen Ehresmann, of the Minnesota Department of Health.
Even before Abbott’s newest rapid tests hit the market last month, undercounting was a concern.
Competitors Quidel and Becton Dickinson have together shipped well over 35 million of their own quick tests since June. But that massive influx of tests hasn’t showed up in national testing numbers, which have mostly ranged between 750,000 and 950,000 daily tests for months.
Besides tallying new cases, COVID-19 testing numbers are used to calculate a key metric on the outbreak: percentage of tests positive for COVID-19. The World Health Organization recommends countries test enough people to drive their percent of positives below 5%. And the U.S. has mostly been hovering around or below that rate since mid-September, a point that President Donald Trump and his top aides have touted to argue that the nation has turned the corner on the outbreak. The figure is down from a peak of 22% in April.
But some disease-tracking specialists are skeptical. Engel said his group’s members think they aren’t getting all the results.
“So it may be a false conclusion,” he said.
One of the challenges to an accurate count: States have wildly different approaches. Some states lump all types of tests together in one report, some don’t tabulate the quick antigen tests at all and others don’t publicize their system. Because antigen tests are more prone to false negatives and sometimes require retesting, most health experts say they should be recorded and analyzed separately. Currently only 10 states do that and post the results online, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The federal government is allocating the tests to states based on their population, rather than helping them develop a strategy based on the size and severity of their outbreaks.
“That’s just lazy” said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard University. “Most states won’t have the expertise to figure out how to use these most appropriately.”
Instead, Mina said the federal government should direct the limited supplies to key hot spots around the country, driving down infections in the hardest-hit communities. Keeping tighter control would also ensure test results are quickly reported.
Johns Hopkins University researcher Gigi Gronvall agrees health officials need to carefully consider where and when to deploy the tests. Eventually, methods for tracking the tests will catch up, she said.
“I think having the tools to determine if someone is infectious is a higher priority,” she said.
Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here