Logistical Hurdles Leave COVID-19 Test Kits Unused

[Judi Lynn]

Scientists at academic labs equipped to test for SARS-CoV-2 report that multiple barriers are preventing from them from operating at full capacity.

Amy Schleunes
Apr 10, 2020

University labs in the US that have been certified to test for the coronavirus and are ready to collaborate with clinics and hospitals are facing regulatory and logistical obstacles to distributing their tests, reports Nature. As a result, some labs are operating at half capacity or less, despite the demands for COVID-19 tests.

Human geneticist Stacey Gabriel of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard says that her lab could be analyzing 2,000 tests per day. “But we aren’t doing that many,” she tells Nature. “Yesterday was around 1,000. What is holding us back? That is the question.”

Several academic laboratories, including the Broad Institute, have invested in adapting their facilities so that they can use PCR to test for SARS-CoV-2, rapidly changing their scientific protocols and meeting federal regulations, as it became clear in late February that tests issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were in short supply, according to Nature.

Scientists report that the barriers to making those tests available are formidable. “There is a misconception that you only need a PCR machine and a PhD—that is 10% of what you need,” says Fyodor Urnov of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, in remarks to Nature. On March 30, Urnov’s facility launched its testing operation after facing weeks of challenges. “My life is waking up at 3 in the morning, and thinking of the 24 things that will go wrong today,” he says.

More:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/logistical-hurdles-leave-covid-19-test-kits-unused-67411

[onecaliberal]

1. Every other country figured it out in very short order but America can't. Wtf?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Not every country. The UK and France have done about a third fewer, per capita, than the USA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Of large developed countries, approximate tests per million population:
Germany 15,700
Italy 15,000
Australia 13,800
Canada 10,100
South Korea 10,000
USA 7,700
Spain 7,500
France 5,100
UK 4,900
Japan 500

I'm not sure what's gone on in Japan - they basically don't seem to have bothered testing at all. Or reporting the test count, though that seems easy enough.

[Igel]

3. Depends on the country.

Small countries don't have as many layers to society--they can't, they're smaller. So universities, government labs, private labs tend to have similar tech. We're big and diverse in our tech.

Other countries did the "let government get out of the way" thing. S. Korea asked private companies to produce tests. 15 days later, two had been by the government. Since business made them, business wanted to make sure they could be sold and targeted commonly held tech. Businesses also had logistic networks in place. Government didn't try to reinvent the wheel because it didn't need to and knew it. Government was neither in business' pocket nor was it antagonistic to business. The US model is if you're not with them you must be against them. Welcome to dysfunction, where even as thousands die people fight to make sure everybody knows just who, exactly, has the *real* power.

Iceland did the same thing, btw. They could actually cooperate with each other, where mutual cooperation =/= one dictate and the other docilely follow behind.

UAE are small enough that they didn't need to have much cooperation.