Allegheny County explains covid-19 backlog, advises priority testing

Allegheny County officials on Wednesday asked residents without covid-19 symptoms not to get tested because of increased demand for testing in the region.

Health Director Debra Bogen said those who should get tested include people with covid-19 symptoms; those who have had close contact with a known, positive covid-19 case; and health care workers and first responders who have been exposed to covid-19.

“I’m asking people who do not fit into these categories to not get tested, so the groups that I mentioned above can,” Bogen said. “I know this is a departure from the guidance I gave a few weeks ago, but the spread of the virus has changed dramatically during that time, and we have to be flexible and responsive to what we can do.”

Bogen said people have reported long wait times to get tested as well as variability when it comes to receiving their test results.

Since the beginning of the month, the county has performed more than 20,000 covid-19 tests. On five of those days, more than than 2,000 tests were performed.

“With the increase in specimen collection, some labs have faced challenges in turnaround time in getting those results out to people, especially at the national laboratories,” Bogen said. “We continue to look at that and try to send more testing to local labs that can handle it.”

People who fall into the lowest priority group don’t have symptoms or haven’t been in close contact with a known case. That includes people who are worried they may have been exposed to the virus or who have traveled to a high-risk place.

“If you can stay home for 14 days, do that, instead of getting tested, unless of course you develop symptoms,” Bogen said.

Bogen said the health department is working to expand specimen collection and testing and has ordered more oral swab coronavirus tests from Curative. Those tests are administered at federally qualified health centers.

A delay in the reporting of Curative test results was a factor in a backlog of tests reported Tuesday. On Tuesday, the county reported 331 new covid-19 cases. Some of those tests stretched back as far as June 8.

According to Bogen, 73 positive cases from June 8 to June 30, and 113 cases from July 1 and July 8 weren’t entered into the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System until Tuesday.

Despite the reporting delay to the health department, patients should have received their results from Curative and the health center that collected the test, Bogen said.

However, because the health department’s contact tracers didn’t know about the tests, they weren’t able to investigate them.

Bogen said a problem occurred when Curative attempted to upload the test results to the state system. The company has since apologized for the situation, and measures have been put in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“Timely reporting of any infectious disease, and especially covid-19, is incredibly critical to our public health,” Bogen said. “Without it, we cannot stay on top of and manage this pandemic.”

Bogen said the county will get daily upload reports from Curative, and the state will let the county know whether any data is missing on a daily basis.

Bogen said Curative was able to upload data to the state system Tuesday and Wednesday without incident.

“I really take this incredibly seriously and pledge to you that we are doing everything we can to prevent this in the future,” Bogen said.