Oregon could double or triple its coronavirus testing capacity this fall if the federal government makes good on a pledge to supply millions of rapid tests across the country.
State officials say they expect 65,000 to 80,000 tests per week from the feds, an astoundingly high number for a state that has one of the lowest per capita testing rates in America.
The new tests would allow state officials to relax screening criteria, respond more aggressively to combat workplace outbreaks and test far more people overall.
“It’s a huge win for us, and a huge boon to our response,” Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state health officer and state epidemiologist, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The White House this week announced that it will provide 100 million tests to states through the end of the year. How the tests are deployed is up to local officials, although the White House made clear its preference for testing teachers at schools that have reopened, health care workers, emergency responders and communities of color.
Oregon officials won’t announce their plans until next week, although it’s likely to include testing for some educators and students.
The influx of tests will similarly enable state officials to revise restrictive testing guidance. They’ll now explicitly recommend testing everyone exposed through close contact to COVID-19, even if the person lacks symptoms. That change will match guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which currently has taken a more aggressive testing stance than Oregon.
“It’s going to be a much more explicit recommendation to do that, we anticipate,” Dr. Thomas Jeanne, the deputy state health officer and deputy state epidemiologist, told health care professionals during a conference call, noting the official change should be announced next week.
The new technology, called the Abbott BinaxNOW, is an antigen test that provides results within 15 minutes. In many ways it’s similar to the diagnostic tests most people are familiar with – samples are collected by a medical professional using a nasal swab.
But an antigen test detects proteins on the surface of a virus rather than detecting the underlying genetic material, which is how molecular PCR tests work.
Antigen tests, while inexpensive and easy to administer, aren’t always as accurate.
“Antigen tests are more likely to miss an active coronavirus infection compared to molecular tests,” according to information on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s website.
“Positive results are usually highly accurate,” the federal agency added, “but negative results may need to be confirmed with a molecular test.”
Sidelinger, the state epidemiologist, cautioned that the antigen test works best for people with higher viral loads who experience symptoms. Officials also don’t know how well they’ll detect infections in children.
But even with those caveats, the supply of promised tests should be huge for Oregon.
The Oregon Health Authority has already received 15,000 tests, and officials are in the process of distributing them to counties affected by last month’s wildfires and to long-term care facilities that evacuated residents.
Sidelinger said officials plan to put the larger weekly testing shipments to use as soon as they’re received, although it’s not clear how that availability will ultimately impact actual testing numbers.
Oregon has not completed more than 41,500 tests in any week since the start of the pandemic, with most weeks somewhere between 30,000 to 35,000.
But testing plummeted last month, amid the wildfires, with fewer than 25,000 Oregonians screened during the Labor Day week.
-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt
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Oregon may soon triple its coronavirus testing capacity. Here’s how. - OregonLive
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