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Just weeks after solving the swab shortage, researchers are suffering from the chemicals and plastic portions they want to perform coronavirus tests in the lab, resulting in long wait times.
By Katherine J. Wu
Laboratories across the country face delays in coronavirus testing, in part due to a shortage of tiny conical plastic.
Researchers want these small disposable products, called pipette tips, to move the liquid temporarily and as it should be between the vials while testing.
While the number of known cases of coronavirus in the United States exceeds four million, this new shortage of pipette tips and other laboratory materials has receded once they hamper efforts to track and slow the spread of the disease. Some other people expect the effects for days or even weeks, and labs compete for materials.
“This is the craziest part,” said Dr. Alexander McAdam, director of the Infectious Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital, one of many valuable pipette establishments. “Whenever there is scarcity, it is the laboratory opposite the laboratory, the people opposite the people, the state opposite the state, competing for supplies.”
Powered by automated devices, researchers can get pipettes through a lot of coronavirus tests in a matter of hours, saving them exhausting manual work.
Swiss company Tecan, which has spikes for machines used in many laboratories in the United States, has been criticized in recent months through orders from U.S. customers, according to Martin Brundle, senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations. Demand has been so high, he said, that Tecan has resorted to an emergency reserve and is working to identify new production lines that it expects will double the company’s production during the fall.
Pipette tips are not the only lab parts that are scarce. Minimizing the stockpiles of machinery, boxes and chemicals needed to extract or magnify the genetic tissue of the coronavirus has obstructed almost every point in the testing process.
The crisis is an echo of the early days of the pandemic, when researchers rushed to locate the swabs and fluids needed to collect and buy samples in the direction of laboratories.
“It’s like Groundhog Day,” said Scott Shone, director of the North Carolina State Public Health Laboratory. “I feel like I lived this day four or five months ago.”
In New York, chemical researchers operating on horseback between machines run the machines at their capacity, while control samples are stacked at the door. In Florida, where cases are increasing, labs report response times of seven to 10 days.
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