That’s a problem for both individuals and public health.
Testing delays also make it difficult for public-health officials to tailor their responses to the right people: those who are infectious, and people to whom they may have passed the virus. In an ideal world, Perl says, outpatient test results would come back within 24 hours. Health officials could then direct the sick person to self-isolate andHealth officials lose valuable time with each day they await test results. Infected people may not know they’ve been exposed and unwittingly spread the virus to others, who go on to spread it to still more people.
The better solution, he says, is straightforward in theory, though challenging in practice: conducting a detailed analysis of the system to better direct supplies and amp up production. “Certainly we have the manufacturing capacity to do this,” Kortepeter says, “it’s just a matter of, how do we turn that on” after decades of outsourcing most medical manufacturing.
We need much faster turn around times for these results if we want them to make any difference in preventing the spread.
It'll accelerate the spread of virus with unprecedented speed among people.