HUGE!!! DECN: National news report July 20,2020
Labs are backlogged and causing COVID testing delays. Could rapid tests be the answer?
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — South Florida is encountering the same testing demand and problems that many experienced at the beginning of the pandemic, doctors confirmed to CBS12 News.
“Testing is beginning to be a problem again,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Olayemi Osiyemi said.
Doctors battling the virus say large labs are backlogged with overdue tests waiting to be processed. In some cases, doctors say labs and suppliers are not sending out testing materials, focusing instead on the mounting number of untested swabs they have.
“For example, I don’t have anymore swabs,” Dr. Osiyemi said. “If you have symptoms, we just assume you’re positive until your test comes back.”
Osiyemi advised anyone with symptoms to self-isolate for 14 days and speak to their doctor.
As a result of the testing backlog, many clinics and doctor’s offices are resorting to so-called "rapid testing." These tests can be performed on machines in house and do not need to be sent out to a lab. Results come back in minutes.
But because of their quickness, these rapid tests can be less reliable than traditional tests. Rapid tests will occasionally miss cases, explained Dr. Osiyemi. But he added they have their place, particularly when faced with backlogs at labs.
Many of these tests are have not been fully tested by the FDA, a process that can take months or years, and instead have what’s called Emergency Use Authorization [EUA] due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Abbott labs rapid test was one of the first tests to receive an EUA. Soon after it entered the market, studies found that it could produce false negatives and the FDA's standards for approval were called into question.
One company hoping for Emergency Use Authorization is Decision Diagnostics, a diabetes testing company that’s created a handheld rapid test they claim will be able to detect the virus in a finger prick of blood or in saliva.
“We can tell people on site, no need to do a nasal swab [and] send it out,” said Shepard Doniger, a consultant for the company.
Doniger said the company is meeting the FDA required test threshold of 95 percent accuracy. Their EUA applications are currently awaiting approval.
“Often you hear that something can be too good to be true, but our testing is showing that’s not the case,” he said.
Some have called on the FDA to hasten the process of approving EUA’s to create a wider selection of rapid tests. But doctors caution that rapid testing can still lead to false negatives and possibly miss cases that are in the earlier, infectious stages of the virus.
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