Ochsner Health System officials will soon begin using rapid COVID-19 tests in their emergency rooms and other areas to screen out patients who have the disease, they said Thursday.
The tests by Abbott Laboratories were cleared by the Food and Drug Administration last week and were shipped to hospitals beginning Wednesday. Ochsner has received some of the tests kits as of Thursday. The 5-minute test joins another 45-minute test in Ochsner’s stockpile and the same-day tests it has had for weeks.
Nearly 1,000 people have been tested for COVID-19 at the Cajundome since March 18, but some still haven’t gotten their results back two weeks later.
Source: Coronavirus test results delayed for some tested at Cajundome
The Louisiana lab is able to test 200 to 250 samples per day and can turn around results in about three days. So far, about 40 percent of the samples tested at the facility have come back positive for COVID-19, according to the Office of Public Health. That’s much higher than the overall positive rate for tests in the state, which stood at 16% as of Tuesday.
Source: This is how coronavirus testing works at Louisiana’s state-run lab | Coronavirus | nola.com
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