Posts Tagged ‘ employeecovidtesting ’

Covid Diagnostic and Antibody Testing Updates for Orange County

By editor
July 7, 2020

We have been pushing the mantra of--

Know if you’re contagious

Know if you’re immune 

Test. Test. Test. 

We are all aware of the large spike in new Covid cases recently. This has created a unprecedented demand for the PCR swab test.

We continue to do these curbside on a near daily basis. That will not change during the current crisis.

However the labs we use -such as Lab Corp and Quest have informed us that due to this large demand results may be delayed a few days. Where we were receiving results in 2 or 3 days , we are being told to expect a 3 to 5 business day turnaround and sometimes up to a week.

That is understandable since there’s a finite number of machines but a large increase in the number of tests.

I advise all of our patients who undergo swabbing with symptoms to stay isolated until the results are back.

Additionally, we have been researching the so-called “quick swabs” which give results in under 24 hours. The sad fact is I cannot justify the high number of false negatives associated with the quick test.

Therefore Caduceus and PDQ will not be offering the test until we can be assured of a better accuracy rate. We would discourage our patients from seeking or taking the test, as tempting as it is to have a quicker answer.

Gregg DeNicola MD, Chief Medical officer