Josh Horton took a coVID-19 check before this month. He followed orders to isolate himself, adding his pregnant wife and three children. The young men even stayed somewhere else.
He spent days waiting and watching Netflix, unable to satisfy him as a husband and father.
The result of his check nevertheless came after 10 days.
“Total delight is simply ridiculous,” he said. “The tests take so long.”
Kathy Hurley had outpatient surgery on July 15. But first I needed a COVID-19 control. When the effects of the check did not arrive in time, its procedure was postponed until August 17.
Jason Foucha has a history: a slow result of COVID-19 control delayed in the schedule of his operation.
Meanwhile, at Poplar Healthcare, an advertising lab in east Memphis, CEO Jim Sweeney won unwanted news on Friday. A shipment of 40,000 pipette tips, small plastic devices needed to perform the tests, was delayed.
This delay was only the last due to the shortage of products in the past needed to carry out tests, such as nasal samples.
“Now we’re talking about stupid bits of a quarter-cent plastic, ” said Sweeney. “That’s how strange he’s become.”
These stories reflect a widespread failure of the COVID-19 verification formula in the Memphis domain and across the country. Increasingly, laboratories cannot reverse the effects in a timely manner, making efforts difficult for the virus.
The local formula was built: the first case of COVID-19 was not shown in Memphis until March 8, after a pattern was performed at a state lab in Nashville. Several laboratories and clinics have temporarily created a physically powerful testing infrastructure here, more than enough to meet demand. In May, officials said that even those with the mildest symptoms deserve to be evaluated.
But in recent weeks, increased demand and a shortage of laboratory appliances have blocked the system. A typical response time in Memphis is now five to seven days, Alisa Haushalter, head of the Shelby County Health Department, said Tuesday. And it takes longer, even 15 to 17 days, he says.
On Tuesday, local officials told others not to take the test unless they were part of a high-risk group, such as symptoms or exposure to a known COVID-19 case.
Solving verification disorders is vital because fitness experts say long delays ruin each and every effort to insinuate people’s contacts and prevent infections.
Memphis executives now aim to name a “test czar,” Memphis Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowen at a news convention Thursday.
A test czar would administer the next generation of testing and assistance in moving resources between public and personal entities testing today, he said.
“We want someone who can move forward, take a look and wake up every day thinking only about the trials and how we deal with those things. This would be essential at a time when the problems of the source chain are ahead of us and asking is essential. »
“Then yes, we are for someone who can enter the gap.
In April, the Shelby County Department of Health conducted about 23,000 tests. More than double the amount made in July: about 52,000 tests on Wednesday.
And now more people who are being tested have the virus. During the week of July 11, Shelby County’s positivity rate rose to 15.1% since the start of the pandemic. The higher the positivity rate, the more widespread the virus is in the population, leading more people to request tests.
A user who recently felt sick Horton. At age 40, he is the founder of Creative Works, a occasion organization and workshops for art professionals in Memphis.
In early July, he had a sore throat, ears and head, without a fever.
Concern about his circle of relatives led Horton to request a COVID-19 checkup, but he had problems.
“I couldn’t get the appointments to sign up for CVS, no matter what date I mentioned,” he said.
Despite everything we tried on the 9th of July in a Gymnasium at Baptist Memorial. Staff told him to isolate himself until he was given the result and warned that it could take five to seven days.
He reviewed the online page several times to see the effects and yet arrived on July 17 after reading the rules of the Centers for Disease Control that say that in maximum cases, other people may come out of isolation 10 days after the onset of symptoms on July 19, won the result by email : negative.
What bothers him most is the breakup of his circle of relatives. “You isolate yourself from your circle of relatives when I have daily work to do.”
Baptist had announced in the past that he was processing his evidence through American Esoteric Laboratories, or AEL, founded in Memphis.
“We expect this highest call to continue and we are actively working to expand our already unprecedented capacity to mitigate strong demand from endemic regions and groups in the United States,” AEL’s parent company Sonic Healthcare USA said in a statement.
Hurley is 63 years old and works as a genuine real estate agent. He had scheduled minor surgery on July 15 at East Memphis Surgery Center.
Medical staff told him to have a COVID-19 check on July 11 at an AEL site. When the effects did not go back in time, it was re-recorded on August 17. He said his doctor’s workplace told him that many patients had the same problem.
“Like if I had Stage 3 cancer, would I be put on hold too?” Hurley said. “Who else is out there that’s experiencing this that it could make a life difference? Those are my thoughts.” She says she finally received her negative test result on Wednesday after making multiple phone calls.
The Memphis Plastic Surgery Group is one of the medical offices used by the East Memphis Center for Surgery. Dr. Robert Chandler, the group’s surgeon, showed that delays have recently begun to stop surgery, and said five or six cases had to be postponed in the past two weeks.
Jason Foucha is a co-owner of GFTeam Tennessee, a martial arts company in Cordoba specializing in jiu-jitsu.
The 34-year-old said he was already nervous when he was diagnosed with a tumor on his wrist; he’s never had surgery before. After waiting 4 hours in the parking lot of the surgical center, he told him to stop by, his effects had not come.
“It bothers your mind, man, because you feel vulnerable as it is. And then it’s like ‘OK, you’re going to have to wait even longer with that in your frame because we’re behind to get your results.'” Foucha said.
Despite everything, he had his operation on Tuesday. The doctor told him the tumor was probably benign.
Meanwhile, her friend Lela Jones, 30, said she was forced to stay home for days after paintings at a promotional product company because the effects of her tests had not come.
East Memphis Poplar Healthcare Commercial Laboratory has contracts for COVID-19 testing for entities, adding LeBonheur Healthcare Methodist System Hospitals, Christ Community Health Services and others.
Sweeney, the CEO, summed up a phone call he won Friday about the spikes needed to run the Hologic Panther machine: “Your order you ordered five weeks ago, Jim, is unsuccessful in you. Array Array I ordered this, I was told, ‘It will be sent, it will be sent. It’ll ship. And then, all of a sudden, you wake up on a Friday morning. You’re like, “Guess what? You’re fucked.” “
The company had to move to the machines and response times slowed down.
“Without the Panther, I can do 1,400 tests a day. With him, 2, 200, 2, 500,” he said. “We retire to stay in hospitals at two days (result time), 3 days maximum. Otherwise, they’re all 3 to 4 years old.”
The lab had conducted tests for out-of-state entities, but is now searching the Memphis area, Sweeney said.
The company plans to install 3 new machines this week, bringing its capacity to 3,000 tests consistent with the day. Poplar Healthcare is also federally approved for “group testing,” a strategy that can accelerate massive testing for a school or workplace.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center operates verification centers on Tiger Lane in Midtown and Cresthaven in East Memphis. The university also operates its own hope lab with a response time of approximately 24 hours, said Dr. Scott Strome, executive dean of the Medical School.
However, it’s not perfect. Strome said the university is investigating a case in which a user had to pass 3 tests in 16 days before getting a result.
The UTHSC lab has about 1,000 tests a day, but has performed fewer, about 450, said Dr. Jon McCullers, dean of clinical affairs at the university.
Given the disorders in the advertising labs and the increased capacity of the university, the UTHSC is receiving more contracts from hospitals and the university is in the process of bringing devices that would double capacity.
McCullers said several people are leading testing efforts in the Memphis area: himself, Jenny Bartlett-Prescott the chief operating officer from Church Health and Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease expert advising the Memphis city government.
Jain advocated the appointment of “check tsars” at the local, state, and federal levels, someone with power to help distribute check resources and bottlenecks.
McGowen stopped before appointing a check tsar at Thursday’s press conference, but said local leaders were close to a selection. “We have some other people who are interested and we think it will help us with our ability to manage checks.”
In the meantime, here’s what public fitness officials propose you should do if you expect the results.
First, tap the organization that made it and request an update.
If 10 days have passed since symptoms appear and symptoms have disappeared, you may need to return to a general life. Memphis fitness officials are asking corporations to recognize this kind of rejection.
For an up-to-date list of verification sites, visit the city’s online page in covid19.memphistn.gov/resources/covid-19-checking-sites-in-shelby-county/.
Investigative journalist Daniel Connolly appreciates the public’s comments. Contact him at 529-5296, [email protected], or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.