Seattle coronavirus testing lab continues to battle shortages
Apr 27, 2020, 8:40 AM | Updated: 10:22 am
A medical laboratory scientist runs a clinical test at UW Virology's lab. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
(Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
While experts emphasize the need for increased coronavirus testing in the U.S., UW Virology’s lab continues to grapple with shortages of crucial supplies.
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According to a recent report in The National Journal, the lab is primarily finding itself short on swabs. And despite having the ability to run thousands of tests daily, it continues to operate under capacity, an issue it’s dealt with since it first started ramping its testing up in March.
“Essentially every day, we have testing capacity in the lab which is going unused, and obviously that’s a source of tremendous frustration for us,” UW Virology head Dr. Keith Jerome told the Journal.
In order to deal with this shortage, labs like UW Virology’s have been calling on the federal government to ramp up production of swabs. That said, Dr. Jerome also noted that his lab is taking its own steps to secure additional swabs and test kits, “to basically get out there and solve the problem ourselves rather than wait for somebody to do so.”
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“That’s how we started from the beginning when we started making our own test for the virus,” Jerome told the Journal. “We didn’t wait for the CDC test or anybody else. We started on our own, and thank goodness for that.”
Gov. Jay Inslee estimates that Washington will need to be processing between 20,000 and 30,000 coronavirus tests a day in order to safely reopen, a range that represents “far more than we are currently doing,” the state health department said recently.
Nationally, a recent report from Harvard University claims that the country will need to triple its testing before the country can begin relaxing social distancing measures.
