Up until now, the major initiative to increase testing in the community has focused on these Saturday testing events, many of them drive-up type setups. For many weeks now, many stakeholders including ourselves and AARP Arizona have been calling for increased and coordinated diagnostic testing in congregate settings like skilled nursing and assisted living facilities and withing the correctional system.
Looks like the message finally broke through, as the state health department is now prioritizing testing in those settings (although the timelines and pace of the testing effort are still unclear).
Nationwide and in Arizona death counts have been dominated by our fellow Arizonans that live in these kinds of congregate settings. It’s nice to see that testing in these facilities is a newfound priority. Perhaps next week I’ll be able to report some of those findings… but probably not, because the state health department isn’t disclosing data that comes from those settings.
