| |
Information from LabCorp about Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
|
| |
| |
......At this time, the test can be ordered anywhere in the U.S. by physicians or other healthcare providers.
March 13, 2020
https://www.labcorp.com/information-labcorp-about-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
https://www.labcorp.com/assets-media/2331
Commercial companies are now working to develop tests that are faster and less cumbersome to run.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/11/814189027/no-guarantee-youll-get-tested-for-covid-19-even-if-your-doctor-requests-it
---------------------
Cleveland Clinic, UH teaming up to provide drive-through COVID-19 testing for some patients
Mar 14, 2020
https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/cleveland-clinic-uh-teaming-up-to-provide-drive-through-covid-19-testing-for-some-patients/
Mayo Clinic develops test to detect
COVID-19 infection
March 12, 2020
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-develops-test-to-detect-covid-19-infection/
----------------------------
Quest
https://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/Covid-19/
Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp, Mayo Clinic roll out COVID-19 tests in US
https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/industrynews/healthcare/10817473-181/health-care-coronavirus-testing
----------------------------
MARCH 13, 2020
White House Declares National Emergency for COVID-19
By Marie Rosenthal, MS
https://www.idse.net/Policy-Public-Health/Article/03-20/White-House-Declares-National-Emergency-for-COVID-19/57614?sub=747A6C7B288AFFC0C1D9FA943B86C84C2D7CA90D99A344811EAE303450CD21&enl=true&dgid=&utm_source=enl&utm_content=1&utm_campaign=20200313&utm_medium=title
The president today declared a national emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the action would allow access for up to $50 billion for states, territories and local governments "in our shared fight against this disease."
Each state is to set up emergency operation centers and every hospital should activate its emergency preparedness plan "so they can meet the needs of Americans everywhere," the president said.
In addition, the national emergency gives broad new authority to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. "The secretary of HHS would be able to immediately waive revisions of applicable laws and regulations to give doctors, all hospitals and health care providers maximum flexibility to respond to the virus and care for patients," including the broader use of telehealth by waiving certain federal licensing requirements, waiving requirements that limit critical access beds and length of stay, waiving the requirement of a three-day hospital stay prior to nursing home admission, enabling hospitals to onboard physicians faster or to obtain needed office space, and waiving the rules that "severely restrict where hospitals can care for patients within the hospital, ensuring that the emergency capacity can be quickly established," he said.
"We'll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need and that they're entitled to. No resource will be spared, nothing whatsoever," the president said.
In addition, the president announced a new partnership with the private sector to vastly increase and accelerate the capacity to test for the coronavirus.
"We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly and conveniently, but we don't want people to take a test if ... we feel that they shouldn't be doing it," he said, explaining that only those with certain symptoms should be tested. In addition, he said the FDA has already cleared
a new test from Roche Diagnostics, and laboratories are quickly gearing up to use the test.
The FDA is also considering the applications of other companies for their coronavirus tests, and clearance should be given quickly, he said, "which will bring additionally 1.4 million tests on board next week and 5 million within a month."
He said the administration has "been in discussions with pharmacies and retailers to make drive-through tests available in the critical locations identified by public health professionals. The goal is for individuals to be able to drive up and be swabbed without having to leave your car."
He added: "Our overriding goal is to stop the spread of the virus and to help all Americans who have been impacted by this."
Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was one of many people at the press conference, said these actions, which will remove many constraints that health officials are under right now, should help the country stay ahead of the curve of the virus.
"We'll have as many constraints as possible removed for them to do everything they possibly can, so that we can implement the things that we've been talking about—the containment, the mitigation," Dr. Fauci said. "As I've said many times, that curve that I refer to that goes up—we don't want to have that curve. We want to suppress it down to that small mound. And I think what we've done today is something that is going to be a very important element in having us be successful in doing that.
"We still have a long way to go. There will be many more cases, but we'll take care of that. And ultimately as the president said, this will end. But what's going on here today is going to help it to end sooner than it would have," Dr. Fauci said.
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
