A big problem in the COVID-19 response the last couple of weeks has been the lack of testing capacity.  The lack of testing capacity has been impairing the ability of doctors to diagnose and treat their patients and  public health’s ability to accurately characterize the spread of the illness.

Late last week I think we finally turned the corner. That’s because private sector COVID-19 testing became available from LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics. Healthcare providers can now order private sector tests and it’s not necessary to contact public health for testing to order the tests.

Details on ordering the tests are on the LabCorp & Quest Diagnostics websites.  The FDA issued Emergency Use Authorizations for the Roche and Thermo Fisher SARS-CoV-2 Tests late last week too but I don’t have any info about the commercial availability of those tests.

Here’s Maricopa County Public Health’s Commercial Laboratory Testing Guidance for Healthcare Providers and Healthcare Provider Testing Guidance for the particulars.

Our county health departments will continue to work with healthcare providers and the state public health laboratory to test patients who meet the stringent statewide testing criteria. 

Here are the most recent guidance documents from MCDPH:

Editorial Note: With the testing capacity ramping up significantly and with the restrictions being lifted on who can get tested with the private sector tests, I expect the number of cases to increase a lot in the coming days.  That won’t necessarily mean that infections suddenly- it will mean that clinicians are finally better able to test their patients and we will be detecting cases and transmission that has been happening without our awareness because of the lack of testing up to now

Related Post