Media Coverage

Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips recalled the day the first U.S. patient infected with COVID-19, a 35-year-old man from Snohomish County in Washington state, had taken a “turn for the worse.”[CR-LF][CR-LF]“He was day nine in his course and he actually started going downhill, started getting worse,” said Compton-Phillips, chief clinical officer of Providence St. Joseph Health, where the patient was treated.[CR-LF][CR-LF]At first, the patient only had common cold-like symptoms, Compton-Phillips said. But very quickly he began to have shortness of breath and a cough, she said. His X-ray also showed viral pneumonia. He needed supplemental oxygen and had to be put on an experimental antiviral treatment.

Connecticut lawmakers will begin the daunting task Friday of crafting a strategy to mobilize the public and private sectors to combat the coronavirus – an effort that comes as state health officials acknowledged hundreds of residents are being monitored for the illness.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The state Department of Public Health is aware of 200 people currently being monitored for the virus, said Max Reiss, spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont. The governor was briefed Thursday by Renee Coleman-Mitchell, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, and Dr. Matthew Carter, the state epidemiologist.

A major health insurance trade group is pledging its member plans will cover doctor-ordered testing for the coronavirus amid rising confusion and concern about who will bear the cost of care in an outbreak.

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez on Thursday joined with 14 Senate colleagues to urge U.S. employers to commit not to penalize workers for following recommended health procedures in order to protect the public from further spread of the coronavirus.[CR-LF][CR-LF]In a letter to major industry groups, which together represent thousands of companies employing millions of Americans, the senators wrote: “As the United States mobilizes to respond to the recent outbreak and spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, we write to urge your member companies to prioritize their employees’ health, economic well-being, and security during this response. The companies you represent are some of the largest, most high profile companies in the United States. The broader business community watches their actions closely and we believe they have an opportunity, and an obligation, to lead in this moment.”

U.S. lab operator Quest Diagnostics Inc said on Thursday it was launching a test service for coronavirus and can start testing from next week.[CR-LF][CR-LF]On Wednesday, the Trump administration met with private lab test developers to discuss increasing the availability of diagnostics.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The company said test services will be provided as a laboratory developed test, pending review by the FDA under emergency-use authorization.

Trump administration officials doubled down on their promise to deliver 1 million tests for the coronavirus this week as states reported limited testing supplies and federal lawmakers expressed doubts about the government's timeline.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters Thursday that a private manufacturer authorized to make the tests expects to ship the kits to U.S. laboratories by week's end. That amounts to the capacity to test roughly 400,000 people, given that it takes multiple test samples to a confirm a result.

Secaucus-based Quest Diagnostics, a provider of diagnostic information services, said Thursday it will launch a coronavirus test service.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The new test service aids the presumptive detection of nucleic acid in respiratory specimens of patients meeting CDC’s clinical criteria for COVID-19 testing. Quest will be in position to receive specimens for testing and begin to provide testing on March 9.

Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest commercial lab companies in the country, announced on Thursday it is launching a laboratory-developed test for the coronavirus next week, but it is unclear how many tests it will be able to run or how much it will cost. A spokesperson told POLITICO the test is in the process of being validated at Quest’s lab in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

Quest Diagnostics plans to launch a nationwide testing service for the novel coronavirus next week—moving forward with its own assay after the FDA gave companies the green light to proceed with validated tests before receiving any agency review or authorizations.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The company described its lab-developed, molecular-based test as designed to detect viral RNA in respiratory specimens, and that it will be used for presumptive detection of the disease known as COVID-19.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Quest said it plans to begin receiving and testing specimens March 9, and will work to submit its test for agency review within the mandated 15-day timeline.

On Thursday, the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. that had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) swelled to 100 -- and next week, that number is probably going to climb much further. That's because the country's second-largest provider of clinical testing services, Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX), has announced plans to begin helping the CDC unwind its backlog of coronavirus tests.[CR-LF][CR-LF]During January and February, U.S. healthcare officials isolated some people at risk of carrying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Unfortunately, a shortage of fully approved testing kits means that it's still unclear how many infected individuals may have slipped through the cracks. It's fairly likely to be a large number. In the past two months, just a few thousand people with suspected cases of COVID-19 were actually tested in the U.S.

Lab operators Quest Diagnostics Inc and OPKO Health Inc said on Thursday they would be able to begin testing for coronavirus from next week, as the U.S. government ramps up efforts to increase diagnostic capabilities.

Despite intense scrutiny and criticism of the diagnostic testing rollout in the US for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the emergency regulatory process may actually be proceeding at a much more rapid pace than past emergencies, which did not involve newly-emerged pathogens.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Commercial tests in development to date have faced bottlenecks in test validation, but the logjam now appears to be clearing with new US Food and Drug Administration feedback and the availability of control materials.

After a weekslong delay, thousands of coronavirus test kits are headed to state and local laboratories, Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday.[CR-LF][CR-LF]But questions remain about when, exactly, those promised test kits will arrive and how well they will work.

The Trump administration met with private lab test developers on Wednesday to discuss increasing the availability of tests for the coronavirus and said that the companies had formed a consortium. Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has included coronavirus testing as an essential health benefit for health plans in a bid to increase Americans’ access to tests.[CR-LF][CR-LF]“We want every American to have access to testing,” Pence said.

Thanks, Mr. Vice President. I appreciate the opportunity and your leadership on this matter. We understand this a public health issue that we all have a role in, and we’re deeply committed to working through this together.[CR-LF][CR-LF]We also appreciate the support of the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control. They’ve been very good partners in this regard. And particularly over the weekend — the decision that was made to give us — a decision that accelerated our path to bringing tests to the market place. As Adam said, we’re validating it as we speak. And, hopefully, by the next week, we’ll able to ramp that up at a number of our laboratories throughout this country.

President Trump and Vice President Pence hold a White House briefing with airline CEOs and diagnostic lab CEOs on coronavirus. There are at least 100 confirmed cases in the country, along with nine deaths, but some experts have suggested that the real number may be considerably higher if testing is expanded.

Following ongoing developments related to COVID-19 testing and response, included below is a statement from ACLA President Julie Khani following today’s meeting with the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force:[CR-LF][CR-LF]“We appreciated the opportunity to meet with Vice President Pence and members of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force this afternoon on the critical issues related to testing capacity. As an industry, clinical labs have taken steps to meet the growing demand for national testing and are working together with the Administration, the CDC and FDA as well as state and local public health labs, hospitals and academic medical centers.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said Monday that, by the end of the week, U.S. labs would have enough materials to perform close to 1 million tests. Public health experts say that figure is misleading because it is far larger than the number of samples that can be processed in labs in the coming weeks.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The realistic estimate is now likely around 5,000 each day, according to a public health lab industry group.

With legal marijuana use laws continuing to make traction throughout the U.S., and the perception of a dwindling job applicant pool, some employers are asking if they should continue to conduct screening for marijuana. Some employers are also challenging the entire idea of performing drug testing in their workplaces. Is there still a benefit to having a drug-free workplace program?

It could be weeks before the United States can meet the demand for coronavirus testing because doctors, hospitals and some public health labs say they aren’t set up yet to do the tests.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Ratcheting up the country’s ability to detect the disease is crucial to understand how the coronavirus — now confirmed in at least 12 states — is spreading. But testing so far has been severely limited by problems with a diagnostic test developed by CDC.

Aimed at making it a bit easier to track the ever-increasing list of coronavirus plays, here is a representative listof diagnostic companies that have either experienced recent volatility or may announce plans to develop tests for COVID-19. Some companies, of course, are more credible players than others.

Primary care physicians may be overconfident in their ability to recognize prescription drug misuse, a researcher suggested here.[CR-LF][CR-LF]An analysis that juxtaposed survey data from 500 primary care physicians with over a half million drug test results showed that nearly three-quarters of doctors trusted their patients to take medications as prescribed, but half of specimens showed signs of misuse, reported Jeffrey Gudin, MD, of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, at the American Academy of Pain Medicine annual meeting.

A worker who is using the drug medicinally may fail a drug test and lose their job. But a recreational user could be making their workplace less safe for everyone if they come to work inebriated.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Enter workplace drug testing.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The rate of positive drug tests hit a 14 year high in 2018, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. Of the 10 million tests processed by Quest Diagnostics, 4.4% tested positive for some type of drug.

Two years ago, the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) was presented with an opportunity to ratchet up adherence to one of its 30 recommendations — #21, which deals with evaluating adult patients with diabetes or hypertension for chronic kidney disease (CKD) through commonly used laboratory tests.[CR-LF][CR-LF]“What Choosing Wisely did was speed up the trajectory more than start the initiative,” said Lee Hilborne, MD, MPH, Past President and Chair of ASCP’s Appropriate Test Utilization Committee and Senior Medical Director for Quest Diagnostics, referring to the society’s partnership with the National Kidney Foundation to harmonize and simplify the testing protocol used to detect CKD.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated announced that it is scheduled to speak at the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference in Miami. Mark Guinan, Executive Vice President and CFO, will discuss the company's vision, goals and two-point strategy to accelerate growth and drive operational excellence. The presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.