BIG ACADEMIA HAS US WASTING COVID TESTS ON QC

[Thr0mbus]

So we get a very very limited supply of Covid Test packets. Guess where a large portion of these tests have to go?????

QC!!!!!!

FOOLISHNESS!!!!

THE PATHOLOGISTS ARE TREATED LIKE THE SCOURGE OF MEDICINE WHEN WE TELL THEM THIS NEWS.

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[Med Director New England]

C’mon on magic
If you are talking about the supplies and Reagents for the roche 8800 (which is the platform majority of Covid testing is being run on) the real bottleneck is the capacity of the machine(s) and the tech time needed to run the machine. All of the reagents, collection devices can be made faster than can be consumed even if every roche in the country is running 24/7

The viral media was in short supply briefly but now collection into saline is acceptable so this is no longer an issue.

pathologists and labs that are running the test at large scale are critical cogs in the Covid response and this is one of the few instances that I recall where the value of pathology services are being showcased

 

[yaah]

So many people don't seem to understand all the stuff that has to go into a test. It's not just the test machinery itself. It's the swabs, the transport media and vials, the QC material, etc. Plus, not to mention for something like this it has to be collected properly otherwise it's going to be negative no matter how infectious the patient is. We have seen a few patients getting tested multiple times when the first one is negative.

But med director is right, a lot of the bottlenecks are loosening and barriers being removed. In many places now the limitations are the capacity of the machines to run enough samples per day. It makes such a huge difference to have quick TAT for this test and people are now seeing how important proper lab testing is.

 

[Thr0mbus]

NO THE CEPHEID.

 

[Med Director New England]

No direct experience with the cepheid platform - but this doesn’t have high capacity to be impactful at a public health level.

no academic conspiracy happening. Academia in general is not leading the efforts of testing and overall are doing a minority of the testing.

Corporate labs (quest, LC) and the private companies making the components are leading the way.

 

[LADoc00]

Slash the QC requirements, you are the medical director, do what you feel is appropriate.

 

[bronx43]

Non-pathologist here. Can someone shed some insight into what the current limitations are for widespread lab testing?

Also, is there a viable rapid test in the near term? I'm talking POC.

 

[Med Director New England]

Non-pathologist here. Can someone shed some insight into what the current limitations are for widespread lab testing?

Also, is there a viable rapid test in the near term? I'm talking POC.

The total testing capacity in the country is now close to 100k / day. Mostly ran on high Thru put instruments that can run 700-800 patient samples in about a 7 hr run. Not every lab would have these capabilities- only large corporate labs and some academic centers could achieve high outputs. One example lab that you probably know, Quest has capacity to run about 35-40k tests / day at its various labs. The state labs before the commercial labs jumped into this were able to do about 25 / day / lab for comparison, pretty abysmal capacity.

to test the entire population in the US (330 million)you can do the math - but we are talking about 10 years with current capacity. If more instruments capable of high thru put are assembled (the roche 8800) and all the production of all needed reagents is ramped up it could be faster.

POC testing - the abbot platform that you’ve probably heard of is basically a benchtop PCR device that can run one test pretty quickly in a few minutes, but it isn’t like a rapid strep or a home pregnancy test (card test) that is simple enough to be in every MDs office. Still a complex test that needs to be run by lab techs. This will likely change soon and a test more like a home pregnancy test or the rapid strep test will be available. This abbot platform is useful at a local level - but even though you get one result quickly - the capacity of one of these machines is not all that high b/c you cant Run hundreds of samples on one run.

 

[bronx43]

The total testing capacity in the country is now close to 100k / day. Mostly ran on high Thru put instruments that can run 700-800 patient samples in about a 7 hr run. Not every lab would have these capabilities- only large corporate labs and some academic centers could achieve high outputs. One example lab that you probably know, Quest has capacity to run about 35-40k tests / day at its various labs. The state labs before the commercial labs jumped into this were able to do about 25 / day / lab for comparison, pretty abysmal capacity.

to test the entire population in the US (330 million)you can do the math - but we are talking about 10 years with current capacity. If more instruments capable of high thru put are assembled (the roche 8800) and all the production of all needed reagents is ramped up it could be faster.

POC testing - the abbot platform that you’ve probably heard of is basically a benchtop PCR device that can run one test pretty quickly in a few minutes, but it isn’t like a rapid strep or a home pregnancy test (card test) that is simple enough to be in every MDs office. Still a complex test that needs to be run by lab techs. This will likely change soon and a test more like a home pregnancy test or the rapid strep test will be available. This abbot platform is useful at a local level - but even though you get one result quickly - the capacity of one of these machines is not all that high b/c you cant Run hundreds of samples on one run.

Very informative! Thank you sir.

Last I heard, we don't even know the sensitivity/specificity about the Abbott test. Is that still the case?

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

Wasting them on tigers is worse.