More than 20 states do not publish or have incomplete knowledge about the immediate antigenic tests that are now essential to involve the coronavirus, which has sickened more than 6 million Americans.
Officials and the public know nothing about the true scope of the pandemic when countless cases are not counted.
The hole will widen as tens of millions of antigen tests travel the country. Federal officials prioritize testing to temporarily stumble upon the spread of COVID-19 in slower but more accurate PCR tests.
Relying on fragmented knowledge of COVID testing has enormous consequences when the government will reopen schools and businesses: coming back to the general too temporarily and threatening more disease epidemics Keeping others at home too long and threatening an even bigger economic crisis.
“Lack of data is very damaging,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, which represents public aptitude officials. “We will be blind to the pandemic. He’ll be around us and he doesn’t have any data. “
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States that report the effects of antigen control or count positive antigens as instances of COVID are California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio. , Pennsylvania, South Dakota. , Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia.
Until now, the maximum COVID tests in the United States were PCR tests, which are processed in medical laboratories and can take days to reverse the effects; On the other hand, antigen testing is offering effects in minutes outside labs, attracting everyone from medical clinics to sports groups and universities.
Each relies on swabs to examine patients. But unlike laboratory controls, many antigen control providers do not have an undeniable way of sending knowledge electronically to public fitness authorities.
However, since July, the federal government has conducted about five million antigen tests in approximately 14,000 nursing homes to involve outbreaks between and residents.
The Department of Health and Human Services also awarded a $760 million contract to acquire 150 million immediate antigenic testing from Abbott, the Illinois-based diagnostic giant, who planned to send 750,000 of them to retirement homes starting last week, said Brett Giroir, HHS leader. who led the Trump administration’s efforts, told industry leaders on September 8 that many will pass to pastors to distribute when schools reopen.
However, haste for antigen testing will be of great help to officials if the effects are communicated publicly and systematically.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) investigated 50 states and the District of Columbia on its collection of antigen control effects and what is publicly reported. Forty-eight responded between September 3 and 10, revealing a significant variation in whether other people tested positive for COVID-19 with an antigen check counted as instances and whether states even publicly claim knowledge of antigens in their verification numbers:
As a result, the number of other people inflamed in the state can be artificially low. For example, lack of notification may mean that infection rates are shrinking because the virus is not spreading as widely, when more antigenic tests are being performed. used and uncounted, experts and public fitness officials say.
“It will seem that his instances are shrinking when it is not,” said Jeffrey Morris, professor of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania.
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HHS recognizes that antigenic testing is not well reported, but argues that officials are missing from the pandemic scale, a spokesperson for the firm said.
“There is sufficient evidence to achieve all the objectives set out in the detection strategy, add the identification of emerging outbreaks, support public fitness isolation and contact search, protect vulnerable people, support the reopening of schools and businesses, and implement state-sponsored testing plans,” Array spokeswoman Mia Dit Heck.
Part of the challenge with reporting antigen controls comes from what is considered a COVID case. The Rules of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe a “confirmed” COVID case as a case we decided on from a PCR check. Verification effects are considered “likely” because verifications would possibly be less accurate.
Months after the first COVID antigen test obtained emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC revised its COVID case definition in early August to allow a positive antigenic test to be counted as a likely case without evaluating whether a user had clinical symptoms or in close contact with a shown inflamed user.
This has led many states, adding Arkansas, as of September 2, to adjust the reported cases.
“It’s simple for other people to think, since we use the word ‘likely’, which is possibly a case, it’s not. But that’s not how we thought,” said Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, medical director of Arkansas Department of Health. “This is a genuine case in the same way that a PCR is a genuine case. “
Dr. Karen Landers, assistant public fitness officer at the Alabama Department of Public Health, said her biggest fear is the possible underestimation of the effects of antigen control as they continue to grow in popularity. While the state has tried to work with each and every emergency care provider. or another health care provider, some have difficulty presenting the effects.
“We can’t miss a case,” he says.
The CARES Act, passed by Congress in March, requires a wide variety of fitness service providers to report any COVID control effects to state or local fitness services. However, two states, Montana and New Jersey, said they did require antigen control providers to report positive or negative effects. Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Wyoming require only positive effects to be reported, which can distort the positivity rate.
Sara Mendez, head of facilities at the Brazos County Department of Health in Texas, said the branch had noticed an increase in administered antigen tests when academics returned from Texas A University
“A lot of academics are passing to pass those tests that PCR tests,” Mendez said, “so we felt we were lost. “
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Indiana University initiated a major antigen verification operation for academics living on campus in August, administering 14,870 antigen checks on 4 campuses through drive-by service, according to Graham McKeen, the university’s deputy director of public health. Academics waited in the cars for about 30 minutes, with 159 positive effects. Each night, a college staff member manually downloaded the spreadsheet to the check machines and sent it securely to the State Department of Health.
But Indiana began reporting antigen tests until August 24, uploading more than 16,000 antigen tests to its public panel that day and pointing out in a press release that it planned to retroactively load past antigenic figures.
McKeen stated that while the state now publishes some knowledge of antigens, the evidence is still lost in the bulky reporting system. The state stated that some of the knowledge was faxed.
“It doesn’t give the network a smart network infection,” McKeen said.
HHS spokesman Heck said federal agencies are working to report the effects and that disorders can be mitigated in the future, noting that Abbott’s antigen verification includes an electronic reader for automated reporting. a month, he said.
To date, however, “[what] this shows are the systems that public fitness agencies have had for years,” said Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “Much of the knowledge we have received is incomplete. “
This barrier to knowledge is also played in nursing homes.
Victoria Crenshaw is refraining from antigen testing to evaluate citizens and staff at Westminster Canterbury Nursing Home in Chesapeake Bay in Virginia Beach, Virginia. As senior director, she sees a major delay: no generation platform is in a position to send smooth effects to fitness officials. Instead, she and her colleagues deserve a hotel to search pieces of paper in combination to provide main points of who has been tested, and they expect the local government to settle for it.
The Trump administration is pushing for nursing homes to use the required screening tests at least once a month and about twice a week. or fines.
“We don’t have any generation to send this information,” Crenshaw said, “which leaves us in a vulnerable position. “
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a non-profit fitness data service. This is an editorially independent KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) program that is affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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