Kristin Heltzel got a COVID-19 test because she wanted to hug her mom.
Before a planned trip to visit her parents’ lake home over the Fourth of July holiday, one of her kids came back from daycare with cold symptoms. The whole family got tested July 1, thinking it was the responsible thing to do before seeing people outside their household. Then, they waited. And waited.
“I got my (negative) results back on day 20, and my husband and my other children are still waiting,” she said on July 21st.
Her family’s specimens went to Quest Diagnostics for testing.
Asked about the delayed test results in Michigan, a company spokesperson directed MLive to a July 20 press release. In it, the company says high demand from states with big spikes is slowing down labs across the nation, including Quest Diagnostics.
“The pandemic continues to surge across much of the United States, which reported record numbers of new COVID-19 cases during the past week. While we believe our gains in capacity will help improve turnaround times over the next few weeks, testing speed is largely a function of demand,” the release notes.
The company is able to turn around the results of what it classifies as “Priority 1″ patients, like those who are hospitalized or hospital workers showing symptoms, in about two days, according to the release. For the rest of the tests it’s processing, the average turnaround is 7 days, though some are as quick as 2-3 days and some take “up to two weeks,” according to the press release.
Heltzel’s family has waited three weeks. They were tested at Pro-Health Medical and Urgent Care in Midland, where Partner and Physician Assistant & Provider Timothy Keeler, too, watched the wait times with growing concern.
“Just today I received a result from Quest from a patient July 3 which was positive... imagine how many people that person exposed,” Keeler said July 22.
In early July, Pro-Health switched test vendors. The new company is returning tests in 3-5 days, Keeler said.
Dawn Kotcher, of Ypsilanti, was tested more than two weeks ago, on July 3, at a community clinic through Packard Health. She, too, is still waiting on results.
“I’m pissed. I’m pissed at this point,” Kotcher said.
She doesn’t have health insurance and picked the Packard Health site because it was free. At the time, she thought it was nice that they were doing free testing at Perry Early Learning Center, a school in a relatively low-income area surrounded by affordable housing. Now, she wonders if it’s part of the reason she hasn’t gotten her results yet.
“I’m concerned about the economic divide and is that it?” she said.
Her friends and family members who have been tested at other sites recently, and used insurance, have gotten results back in a few days, she said.
“We got into this because we think it’s important to get good testing to manage the epidemic. So I’ll be frank, we’re as frustrated as anyone,” said Packard Health Executive Director Ray Rion.
He watched wait times for test results from Quest Diagnostics grow from a couple of days to a couple of weeks since around the 4th of July holiday. While they’re able to get tests for symptomatic patients back in 24-48 hours, test results for asymptomatic people are taking weeks.
“You can do the test but the delay is so long that it doesn’t matter. So we’re almost back to March, now,” Rion said, referring to the early days of testing when there were test shortages around the state.
The Washtenaw County Health Department has partnered with Packard Health to set up testing sites like the one Kotcher visited. Spokesperson Susan Ringler Cerniglia said the department has recommended to Packard Health that they switch labs, something Rion said Packard was still exploring.
“They’ve been one of the only ones that have been open daily, accessible, they’ll test you without charge whether or not you have insurance... it’s not their fault that the laboratory is backing up and has all these other priorities, being a national laboratory,” Ringler Cerniglia said.
Kotcher didn’t have symptoms but got tested because she was going back to work in person, as a tutor in people’s homes. Without a test to reassure them, she’s taken other measures. She changes clothes between every client’s house. She’s spent more than $100 to duplicate her school supplies so she has a separate set for each household. But she can’t stay home for weeks and weeks waiting for a test that will be obsolete by the time she gets it.
“It’s those of us that have no symptoms, that are actually working, that are the ones trying to keep the economy rolling... and we can’t get our results,” Kotcher said.
Ringler Cerniglia said the delays are affecting individuals, but also public health efforts to stop the spread of the disease. If a delayed test is positive, contact tracing becomes more difficult when asking someone to remember everybody they saw weeks ago.
Local health authorities use contact tracing to alert people who have been exposed to the virus and isolate them to stop the spread. If the results are too late, “It does kind of take the wind out of our sails for that whole process,” Ringler Cerniglia said.
For Heltzel’s family, with no results yet, the Fourth of July trip was an exercise in social distancing. They stayed in a camper across the street from her parents, kept the kids out of the house, did all their socializing outside in the heat and wore masks.
“I just wanted a couple days of turning COVID in my brain off and just enjoying my family,” Heltzel said.
Instead, she spent the 10-day vacation wondering where her results were.
And she never got that hug.
CORONAVIRUS PREVENTION TIPS
In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.
Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.
Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.
Related stories:
From Muskegon to Ypsilanti, here’s what it’s like to get a coronavirus test in Michigan right now
Thinking about getting a coronavirus test? 4 pieces of advice from Michiganders who have
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