How Mississippi became a COVID-19 testing leader despite ‘bottlenecks,’ lack of federal help
Mississippi ranks No. 6 among all states in testing for the new coronavirus, state officials say, despite a lack of federal help acquiring needed supplies.
The five states doing more testing than Mississippi, as of April 15, all have dealt with more serious outbreaks of COVID-19, case records show.
Still, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said he wants to see the number of COVID-19 tests double, which would be about 160 people per 100,000 a day. Mississippi is currently testing an average of about 84 people per 100,000 a day, the best available data shows.
“We want to do a lot more,” Dobbs said during a regular news conference Monday afternoon with Gov. Tate Reeves. “There have been significant bottlenecks.”
Reeves said testing numbers are increasing, but slower than he wants to see. The state has tested 51,434 people, the latest numbers on the State Health Department website show, or about 1.7% of the total population.
The state reported a total of 4,512 COVID-19 cases and 169 deaths as of Sunday evening. The first case was reported March 11 in Mississippi. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday reported 746,625 cases and 39,083 deaths.
The Mississippi State Department of Health has ramped up testing with the help of scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi and researchers at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, which is working with the health department to provide free drive-thru testing.
Testing is crucial because COVID-19 cases will spike again if the economy reopens too soon. Without adequate testing, nobody can say how broadly the virus has spread, especially because some people experience no symptoms.
Two doctors and a research assistant at the Harvard Global Health Institute projected that 152 people per 100,000 a day need to be tested nationwide before the country can safely begin to reopen. They said the estimate was very conservative and based on available testing data, which is incomplete but the best available.
So far, tests in this country show a 20% positive rate for COVID-19. By comparison, South Korea, which has been very effective in limiting transmission, has a 3% rate. In Germany and New Zealand, positive rates are 6-8%.
A positive test rate above 10% shows a need for far more testing, the Harvard research concluded.
The lead author of the study and faculty director of the Institute, Ashish K. Jha, explained the importance of broader testing as governors around the country consider whether to end shelter-in-place restrictions in early May.
“It’s basic biology,” Jha said on Fox News. “The moment people go back to work, the moment they go back to doing regular stuff, infected people and uninfected people are going to start coming in contact with each other and infection’s going to start spreading again.
“That’s just basic biology. That’s not a risk. It’s a certainty. And the only way we can prevent another explosion of cases is by identifying everybody who is sick and sheltering them in place.”
Broader testing and quarantine of those who are infected, he said, would allow virus-free individuals to return to work, he said, rather than forcing most everyone to stay home.
By April 15, Mississippi’s 86 tests per 100,000 a day were exceeded only by New York, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Rhode Island had the highest testing rate at 185 per 100,000, followed by Louisiana with 124 per 100,000 and New York with 118 per 100,000.
