Widespread Coronavirus Testing Could Still Be Weeks Away

The United States may not be able to meet public demand for coronavirus testing for weeks because U.S. doctors, hospitals, and public health laboratories say they lack adequate resources, reports Politico Pro . Testing has been limited by problems with a diagnostic assessment developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — problems that have since been corrected. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has permitted some local laboratories and hospitals to develop their own tests, but many labs are not quite ready to analyze samples. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn stated on Monday that U.S. labs would have sufficient materials to perform nearly 1 million tests by the end of this week. Public health experts countered that this number far exceeds the total samples that can be processed in labs in coming weeks. The Association of Public Health Laboratories said Hahn's projection depends on additional CDC tests being developed by Integrated DNA Technologies. The association added that public health labs using CDC's latest diagnostic test can conduct 100 tests daily under normal circumstances — but just 54 labs have verified the test for use as of Tuesday, and testing one person requires at least two samples.