Media Coverage

Public health officials have been clamoring for greater testing capacity to help them combat the spread of the new coronavirus in their communities. Now, as testing is poised to become more widely available from commercial labs, the cost of those diagnostic tests could become a factor in the effort to control the virus.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Lab Corp. announced Thursday it was immediately offering testing for COVID-19, while Quest Diagnostics said it will start testing specimens next week, increasing the options for hospitals, physicians offices and urgent care clinics.

President Trump, on a visit to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, asserted that coronavirus tests are available to "anybody." "Anybody that wants a test can get a test," he said. "That's what the bottom line is."[CR-LF][CR-LF][CR-LF]And he added, "Anybody right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. They have the tests and the tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test gets a test. If there's a doctor that wants to test, if there's somebody coming off a ship like the big monster ship that's out there right now, which you know again, that's a big decision. Do I wanna bring all of those people on? People would like me to do that. I don't like the idea of doing it."

New coronavirus cases emerge across the country. Michigan is the biggest of the six primary states voting next week. And, a cease-fire between Turkey and Russia is in effect in northwestern Syria.

Nearly a week after the first U.S. coronavirus death was announced, the Trump administration scrambled Friday to meet its target for increasing the number of people able to be tested. But it still could take weeks for the actual tests to take place.[CR-LF][CR-LF]HHS Secretary Alex Azar told reporters that the government had shipped out materials for 700,000 coronavirus tests — well short of the 1.5 million that Vice President Mike Pence had said would be available to hospitals this week, in remarks on Wednesday. Late Friday, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir told POLITICO that more tests passed quality checks, bringing the total ready to 1.5 million.

Hospitals across the state are preparing for an influx of people wondering whether they’ve contracted coronavirus by making plans for “triage centers” outside their main buildings.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The centers could be tents in hospital parking lots, or temporary trailers or office space, not necessarily near the hospitals that would open them.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The extra infrastructure would be used primarily for screening and testing, not treatment, in order to keep people who think they may have contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus out of waiting rooms and emergency departments where people with otherwise compromised immune systems might be.