COVID-19 testing still limited in Mecklenburg, as total cases in county climbs to 7
Mecklenburg County is still dealing with limited supplies for testing COVID-19, county Public Health Director Gibbie Harris said Monday afternoon.
Harris announced three new cases in the county of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, as of Monday, bringing the Mecklenburg County total reported cases to seven.
She said she doesn’t have the exact number of available tests in the county, but said Mecklenburg has been able to test everyone who needs it — everyone with symptoms and exposure to a confirmed case.
“We have not turned anyone away who has the symptoms and meets the requirement for testing,” Harris said.
As of the end of the day Friday, Mecklenburg County was monitoring 259 people for COVID-19, Harris said. Those people have been tested and are being monitored until the tests come back, she said Monday.
Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. Anyone with symptoms should call their doctor or the health department before visiting in-person. Mecklenburg County’s coronavirus hotline is 980-314-9400.
More than 500 people in North Carolina had been tested as of Saturday, Mandy Cohen, head of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said at a news conference that day, the (Raleigh) News & Observer reported.
Those numbers include tests done by the state lab and private N.C.-based diagnostics company LabCorp, according to the News & Observer.
Lack of availability
But North Carolina still has a limited capacity for testing.
One of the big hold-ups in testing has been the lack of availability in one of the test components — an extraction agent to take the genetic material out of the virus before running the test, state health director Elizabeth Tilson said last week.
“This extraction agent to test one way for COVID-19 was something that our lab had depended on,” Cooper said in a news conference last week.
“And we had been promised from the CDC that we will get this. It hasn’t happened nationwide,” Cooper said. “So every single state is going through this right now because there is a shortage of this extraction agent.”
There are other ways to test without the extraction agent, Cooper said. For instance, LabCorp’s test doesn’t require the extraction agent, he said.
Cooper said at the news conference the state had tried to order the extraction agent from the state’s supplier, but it didn’t come.
“So now we’re working to see if other people have that extraction agent,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck.”
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