ETSU Health has opened the region’s first COVID-19 community collection site that offers test results within 24 hours.
ETSU Health has been testing for the novel coronavirus in their labs since late April.
“When we were looking towards the flu season, we kind of, like many others, anticipated that we were going to see an uptick in the number of cases, and/or even if there wasn’t an uptick in the number, we wouldn’t be able to differentiate between who had the flu and who had coronavirus,” said Dr. Kevin Breuel, a professor at the Quillen College of Medicine. “So, we were going to have to do a lot more testing, just to be able to isolate and identify those that weren’t affected.”
All the platforms that they run in their lab are reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction, which is considered the gold standard of testing. The one they are using is the third protocol authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration called Tech Path.
“It allows us in one run to perform 92 patient’s specimens, and currently we run two of them a day right now,” said Breuel. “So, we can run up to 200 in an eight-hour shift capacity of patient results.”
In their open week, a rough estimate of their daily patients came to be 90 patients a day, and they have had, on average, 10 people a day test positive.
They already have 100 patients scheduled to be tested on Monday, November 9.
The work at ETSU Health is a team effort, which includes the work of Kevin Breuel, Dr. Sheri Holmes and Dr. William Block.
When it comes to the coronavirus, Breuel echoes the sentiments of many, stating that everyone should be following all the CDC guidelines. This includes wearing masks, social distancing and washing your hands
Individuals who wish to be tested can schedule an appointment with ETSU Health on their website www.etsuhealth.org.
