Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Dozens of Machines in Virginia Are Processing COVID-19 Tests

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Perhaps this slide will prove useful to the task force just appointed by Governor Ralph Northam to address the disarray in the Virginia Department of Health’s COVID-19 testing program. In the face of a declining number of tests reported to the Virginia Department of Health in the past week, Northam has said he won’t relax emergency measures shutting down Virginia’s economy until the state boosts its capacity to test and measure the incidence of the disease.

The slide, taken from a presentation by Deborah L. Birx, coronavirus response coordinator for the White House, shows the location of dozen high- and low-throughput testing machines across Virginia. Said Birx yesterday:

We wanted every governor and every state and health laboratory director to have a clear understanding of the full capacity within the state – both for the capacity, but also where technical assistance and additional supplies may be available. … Every governor not only received the Excel spreadsheet with the complete list of the equipment and the ZIP Code of the location and the laboratory to really be able to create a mosaic of laboratories of the high-speed and low-speed equipment together to meet the needs of their clients, depending if they’re drive-through or hospital needs. …

We wanted to show, both in states that have large populations and in states that have lower populations. You can see that, in general, the number of machines match their population.

(View Birx’s presentation here. Go to the 48:23 mark. Hat tip: Ken Stiles.)

What’s the next step for Virginia? If VDH hasn’t done so already, it needs to contact each of these testing sites to  make certain that results are incorporated into the state database. Then administrators need to create a mechanism to smoothly handle the ensuing onslaught of data. Finally, the working group needs to figure out which metrics will give the Governor the intelligence he needs to make well-informed decisions on how to phase in the reopening of Virginia’s economy.

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31 responses to “Dozens of Machines in Virginia Are Processing COVID-19 Tests”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    As Hogan and other Governors including Cuomo have stated – it’s not the Labs, it’s their supplies. You can have sites all over Virginia but if that lab cannot get the testing supplies it needs, it means nothing.

    Compound that with the fact that each testing unit of a given manufacturer uses different testing materials – i.e. they’re not interchangeable.

    Each of these labs has a testing capability – determined by the amount of supplies they have. Any map that shows these facilities needs to also show what their testing capability is.

    On the Federal Labs – are they actually useable? Can they actually test the general public or test people in general or are they dedicated to Federal needs?

    If we’re going to report on this stuff in BR, ought we not also add this information as part of the issue?

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Just imagine a Maryland truck at the gates of Ft. Detrick with a load of specimens.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Just totally disingenuous on the part of the Trump folks and people either are gullible enough to believe or just don’t care if they want to
        use it in a political narrative against someone else.

        with this kind of “thinking” gawd help us on the rest……..

        When Hogan, Cuomo, and Northam say that testing supplies are a problem and we choose to believe Trump charts … lord have mercy.

  2. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    ven·ti·la·tor
    /ˈven(t)əˌlādər/
    noun
    1.
    an appliance or aperture for ventilating a room or other space.

    Uh yep, he’s the King of the Ventilators

  3. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    So the choices are move forward with reopening, taking the risk, or sit on our collective and widening arses for another four, eight, maybe 52 weeks waiting for a vaccine? You two are back to being nattering nabobs, offering nothing useful, seemingly enjoying the economic chaos. This whole thing busts on May 8, I betcha. Northam can hold the dike that much longer, no more, so he’d better get the plan in place if he wants it controlled and gradual.

    Geez, Larry, your first response up there probably mirrors the whining and excuse making that seems to have infected our state government. 100 reasons why it can’t be done…and it doesn’t get done. I started this process with high confidence in Northam, happy we had a doc in that job, but the signs of disarray are plentiful. If perfect tests are not available yet, we move forward with what we have. Any re-opening has to include continued lockdowns for nursing homes, congregate settings, etc. But is is now perfectly clear that many who get exposed don’t even get sick, most who get sick recover outside of a hospital, and the hospitals are much better now at dealing with the bad cases. If you have hypertension/obesity/asthma etc – stay isolated! A depression can summon the four horsemen, too.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      re: ” So the choices are move forward with reopening, taking the risk, or sit on our collective and widening arses for another four, eight, maybe 52 weeks waiting for a vaccine? ”

      who made them the only choices – the addle-brained?

  4. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    It must be hard to be a Northam-apologist these days. Over a month ago it was obvious that Virginia was running COVID-19 tests at a low per-capita rate. The Northam defenders trotted out the “Orange Man Bad” defense. Day by day it became more and more obvious that Virginia was falling further and further behind on per capita testing versus the other states, DC and US territories. Since Orange Man applied to all states the “Orange Man Bad” defense lost its luster. The next defense was that testing was inaccurate and therefore irrelevant. That remained in vogue until Northam himself insisted that reopening Virginia would be dependent on more testing. Now the Northam apologists have gone back to the “Orange Man Bad” approach presumably hopeful that everybody will have forgotten the state-by-state per capita statistics. Nobody has forgotten. As of today Virginia is 48th among US states in per capita testing with 698 completed tests per 100,000 people. Guam has passed us. The testing leader is Rhode Island with 3,511 tests per 100,000 people. That’s more than 5X the rate in Virginia. How is the government in Rhode Island finding the test kits to achieve this level of superiority over Virginia? Northam’s apologists have no answer. If Orange Man has a vendetta against Virginia with a love affair for Rhode Island one would think Northam would mention that. Yet Ralph is stony silent on why Virginia is miles behind almost every other state.

    Meanwhile, Virginia has America’s 17th highest rate of COVID-19 deaths per capita.

    17th in deaths and 48th in tests.

    Sorry guys, Orange Man hasn’t put us 48th in per capita testing, Coonman has done that.

  5. CrazyJD Avatar
    CrazyJD

    >>Over a month ago it was obvious that Virginia was running COVID-19 tests at a low per-capita rate.

    And if I read correctly, it wasn’t until yesterday that Northam appointed a “working group”. How did it happen that the charlatan-in-chief, that climbing, looping, wheeling, diving, oscillating, rotating, obfuscating, vibrating a____e Trump created his awful, incompetent, Pence working group almost three months ago. He could have delayed doing that and saved a lot of money in salaries for those foks. Shame.

    It’s hard being snarky, Nancy, but I’m trying. I hope to meet your standards soon.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      re: 3 months ago – and yes 3 months of party science folks pleading for rationality and part idiocy on steroids with Pence trying to maintain some semblance of rationality.

      The narrative against Northam is going nowhere except in the minds of the uber-partisans…

      the choice is not do nothing or die. But it DOES require more intelligent reasoning about how to go forward.

      Don’t point to Northam – point to the Corporations and small businesses because it is THEY who will decide how to go forward – …. and you
      can bet that they’re not going to just “open-up” and go back to the way it was – no matter who says that’s the right way in their own minds…

      Trust the business community on this not the zealots and wackadoodles in the streets.

  6. Bosun Avatar
    Bosun

    Show me on this map where Jim, Steve, Dick, etc. can walk up to the door and get tested just by asking, then I will be impressed by the map. I strongly doubt an average citizen can walk into Ft. Lee, the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, the Maguire Veterans Hospital, etc. and get tested.
    Show me another map ranking the testing machines by accuracy of their test results [positives vs. false positives] as well as how long their FDA approval has been in existence.
    Colored dots of type of machines don’t tell me anything except to keep on playing politics with people’s lives, especially mine.
    I will agree that our Governor [“Coonman”? Really, Jim] has made mistakes and could have done things sooner/better but compared with what is coming out of the current administration? Bosun

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Bosun, I think you’re missing the point of the map. The idea is not to provide drive-through testing service for everyone. It’s to collect data that is currently going un-collected and to coordinate protocols and priorities.

      As for “Coonman,” I wasn’t the one to recycle that old nickname.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        re: ” As for “Coonman,” I wasn’t the one to recycle that old nickname”

        but you HAVE said that calling Trump an asshat is an Ad Hominem.

        which is it?

        1. James A. Bacon Avatar
          James A. Bacon

          Calling someone an “asshat” is an ad hominem attack. The difference is that “Coonman” is not some randomly chosen insult. Northam once answered to the nickname. Given his track record on matters of race, one can argue, it’s fair game. I’ve used it myself on a couple of occasions, but decided to stop doing so because it plainly is a derogatory way of referring to the Governor. I don’t believe that using the nickname adds anything to the conversation.

          1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
            Nancy_Naive

            Thin… very thin. What if Trump had answered to “asshat”?

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Geeze Bosun, there you gone and told the truth.. DANG IT!

    3. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Ooooh stop that! It tickles.

  7. Bosun Avatar
    Bosun

    Jim – Fair enough, but the map was originally proffered by the prez as a way to show that governors were to blame; that there is plenty of testing being done, so open the damn economy back up.
    Do you know if ALL of the federal facilities in Virginia are required to report their testing results to the state? I think that would be important because their are thousands of military personnel in Virginia regardless where their home is. That would pump up our numbers. Bosun

    1. Steve Haner Avatar
      Steve Haner

      Bosun, the fact that we don’t know the answers to those questions……is the answer to those questions. It’s chaos. I’ve been getting a notice from my GP’s office about availability of testing (I assume through LabCorp or some similar national lab), but if I did, would the results be reported to VDH? Doubt it. And why would I get tested with no symptoms, when I could get the bug on my way home? The communication failure has been total. And yes, the political buck passing between WH and the states is less than helpful. I’d wish a plague on all their houses, but….we’ve got one.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Steve – what if you got a phone call that you or a member of your family had come into contact with someone that tested positive – you’d want a test, right?

        and your GP? I would not think your GP would want you in their office if you thought you might have the bug. How would a regular GP actually test someone? Where would they test you and they’d have to be wearing PPE and other… right?

        It seems like there would be a need for dedicated testing locations.

  8. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    And they’ve got one, asshat.

  9. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    Abbott High Throughput oops… apologies accepted.

  10. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Ok, let’s try to run this down one more time.

    Ralph Northam says Virginia has to do more testing in order to reopen the state’s economy.
    Right now, Virginia is in 48th place among the 50 states in per capita testing.
    Yesterday Virginia completed 2,002 tests. West Virginia conducted 2,124 (with a much smaller population), Utah conducted 4,176, Tennessee conducted 3,591. And so it goes.

    Rhode Island is testing at 5X the per-capita pace of Virginia since data on testing started to be collected on March 11.

    So, the key question is why Virginia can’t get its testing up to snuff compared to other states. Because of Trump? Isn’t Trump also the president of the country with the 47 other states that are more successfully testing than Virginia? Of course he is.

    What are we missing? Test kits? People to test? People to administer the tests (along with PPE)? Lab capacity to process the tests?

    Why are 47 other states able to test at a faster pace? We’re #17 in per capita COVID-19 deaths so we have every reason to desperately want more testing. Where did they get the test kits? Who are they testing (hint: California is testing entire towns and neighborhoods in some cases)? Who administers their tests (hint: hospitals in Virginia are furloughing health care professionals for lack of work)? How do they process the tests (hint: They have charts just like the one the White House provided Virginia)?

    Logically we are either short on test kits or processing capability.

    Anybody care to bet which (hint: Maryland’s governor just bought 500,00 test kits from South Korea)

    The core truth is that the Northam Administration has been unable to launch and accelerate an adequate testing capability despite the fact that many other states have been able to do so. And all of the other states are governed by the same federal government with the same president.

    Northam is holding Virginia’s economy hostage to his own inability to do what other governors have done.

    That should be unacceptable to everybody.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      no “coonman”? .. what the…. ??

      Virginia is dang near last – no question.

      But I still don’t know what the higher testing states are actually
      testing for or for that matter what Virginia is testing for.

      One presumes that all states are testing the hospital and EMS folks who are actually in close contact with virus victims.

      But are the other states that are testing a lot doing contact tracing or just testing a lot?

      A test by itself does do a whole lot unless it is positive and if it is, that’s the opportunity to do more testing to find more infected.

      For instance, I do not think New York nor California are doing contact-tracing so even though they both are doing a lot of testing – does it really mean that much unless in doing that testing they ARE finding more infected and isolating them.

      I’m not even sure that statistic is even being collected – i.e. testing of general population with no symptoms – and finding infected.

      If Virginia would start testing right now AND they were doing contact tracing, would they be among a very few states (if any) that are contact testing?

      Finally, if Virginia knows how many tests it will need to start contact tracing and they do not have enough tests right now – what should they do? Start anyhow and run out? Or wait till they have enough then do it and continue to do it?

      If they start testing then have to stop -have they gained anything?

      If Va came out – like Cuomo and Hogan have and said they do not have enough testing equipment – would that solve anything?

      I’m not making excuses – Virginia does need to get on with it – but as far as I can see – testing just for testing sake is not going to do much unless it is actually going to help track down infected people and isolate them before they infect others.

    2. idiocracy Avatar
      idiocracy

      “So, the key question is why Virginia can’t get its testing up to snuff compared to other states.”

      I think if you figure out the answer to that one, it’ll be the same answer as to another few dozen questions about why Virginia can’t do that which other states seem to have no problem accomplishing.

      I’m starting to think it has to do with a stupid populace and corrupt politicians. I used to think it was just the corrupt politicians, until one day I realized that they get votes. Hence the stupid populace.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        What states are contact tracing?

  11. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    For Information Purposes Only… no seriously, don’t use these tests to diagnose!

    https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-serological-test-validation-and-education-efforts

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      serological tests, right?

      I’d be curious to hear your view of how to move forward in terms of testing.

      The impression being left is that no testing is good or useful and I’m sure that’s not what you mean.

      so what testing regime do you support – and why?

    2. Steve Haner Avatar
      Steve Haner

      Read it. Thank you. That’s the anti-body tests, not the diagnostic tests. Antibody = apple. Diagnostic = orange. The data Jim pointed to at the beginning was the widespread availability of labs ready to to test for oranges….and you point to the problem with apples. Agreed, the anti-body tests are still in the wild west phase, but things are moving fast and eventually a good one will emerge.

      1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
        Nancy_Naive

        Which test was used in Santa Clara?

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/20/feud-over-stanford-coronavirus-study-the-authors-owe-us-all-an-apology/

          1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
            Nancy_Naive

            Well doggies

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