Sedgwick County labs now can test for coronavirus, health director says
Sedgwick County now has the capability to test for coronavirus locally, which is expected to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get patients’ results, county Health Director Adreinne Byrne reported Wednesday.
This week, two local labs, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, got approval to process tests for the virus, also known as COVID-19, she said.
Although no one has yet had a COVID-19 test by the local labs, it will reduce the wait for results from days to potentially hours, she said.
“The turnaround time is night and day compared to what it was,” Byrne said.
When coronavirus first emerged in the United States, the tests could only be processed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
In recent weeks, samples still had to be carried by courier to Topeka for analysis at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
That cut the turnaround time to about 48 hours, but “It should be even less than that with some of our labs being able to test here in Wichita,” Byrne said.
Now, same-day testing will be possible if it is done in the morning, or next-day if the patient comes in in the afternoon, she said
She stressed that you can’t “just pop into a lab and get tested.”
The testing still has to be prescribed by a physician following a very specific set of criteria focused on risk factors for virus exposure, such as travel to certain countries or contact with persons known to be infected.
Byrne is providing weekly updates on the virus to the Sedgwick County Commission at its Wednesday morning meeting.
She said those reports from now on will only include positive tests for the virus, which Sedgwick County hasn’t had any of yet.
She said she won’t be including the number of people tested for the virus nor the number of negative test results.
That’s been causing too much misinformation on social media as people misunderstand the difference between those who are suspected of having the virus - known as persons under investigation or PUIs - and those who actually have it, Byrne said.
“It’s been very confusing for people to follow and that’s how you hear we have seven cases in Wichita or Sedgwick County when we don’t,” she said. “We didn’t even have seven people tested.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 10:55 AM.
