Millions more coronavirus rapid tests, but are results reported?

[Mary Wilson]

By Associated Press
Today

WASHINGTON >> After struggling to ramp up coronavirus testing, the U.S. can now screen several million people daily, thanks to a growing supply of rapid tests. But the boom comes with a new challenge: keeping track of the results.

All U.S. testing sites are legally required to report their results, positive and negative, to public health agencies. But state health officials say many rapid tests are going unreported, which means some new COVID-19 infections may not be counted.

And the situation could get worse, experts say. The federal government is shipping more than 100 million of the newest rapid tests to states for use in public schools, assisted living centers and other new testing sites.

“Schools certainly don’t have the capacity to report these tests,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020...navirus-rapid-tests-but-are-results-reported/

 

[JJackson]

“Schools certainly don’t have the capacity to report these tests,” Why?
A school running a rapid test system knows how many tests it is running per day and how many come back positive, uploading these two numbers to a website is hardly much of an additional burden. All it needs is a the relevant agency to provide a site, the test manufactures to include instructions with their tests and who they sent them to, the school to provide its numbers of staff and pupils and its GPS location. This would provide a very powerful network of early warning sentinel sites showing where disease prevalence is rising, or falling, data badly needed by local public health to inform containment measures.