Can I get tested for coronavirus on the Coast? It’s possible if you meet these guidelines
The turnaround for coronavirus testing on the Mississippi Coast is up to 72 hours, with the two largest health care systems reporting negative results from the samples they have so far sent for testing to the state’s Public Health Laboratory.
As of March 14, 90 people in the state had been tested for COVID-19 and six were positive.
Dr. Nicholas Conger, an infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, said tests also can be sent to private labs but the distance means results can take up to seven days.
He and Sarah Duffey, media relations director at Singing River Health System, say their doctors and hospitals are following CDC and state Health Department guidelines on who to test:
▪ Patients with fever and/or acute respiratory illnesses, including a cough or difficulty breathing
▪ Patients, including healthcare personnel, who have had contact no more than 14 days before symptoms started with a diagnosed patient or who have traveled in affected geographic areas
▪ Hospitalized patients with signs or symptoms when other illnesses have been ruled out
▪ Others with symptoms who are over 65 years old, immunosuppressed or have chronic health conditions.
“Testing has become more available recently,” Conger said, “but we are in a posture where we can’t test everybody who wants to be tested. We are testing people who need to be tested.”
He said most patients Memorial is seeing who have symptoms are testing positive for Influenza A or the rhinovirus.
Hospitals and physicians are being judicious in who they test, representatives said, because they want to make sure their supplies hold up.
“People need to understand we can’t test everybody because we could eventually run out if this gets bigger,” said Duffey. “We don’t want to be wasteful. We don’t want to jeopardize our operations.
“We don’t want to jeopardize our ability to care for our community, so we’re going to take the proper measures to test who we need to test and not be wasteful. We want to get to the people who are really sick.”
Trump on Friday told people to expect the imminent rollout of a website “facilitated” by Google that would guide users through a series of questions to determine whether they should be screened for the virus, the Associated Press reported. If testing is recommended, users would be directed to a local testing location, which could include parking lots at Walmart, Target, Walgreens and other chains.
But it quickly became apparent that such a fast track to testing was in early stages of development and would not be widely employed soon.
This story was originally published March 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
