NC needs more coronavirus test kits, officials say

As the number of coronavirus cases expands in the U.S., officials are having trouble keeping up with the number of people needing to be tested for the virus.

Posted 10:04 p.m. Mar 6, 2020 — Updated 12:34 a.m. Mar 7, 2020

Matthew Burns

, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Adam Owens, WRAL anchor/reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — As the number of coronavirus cases expands in the U.S., officials are having trouble keeping up with the number of people needing to be tested for the virus.

North Carolina has enough supplies at its public health lab to test 150 people, but the state is working with a manufacturer to get supplies to test an additional 500 people, state Secretary of Health and Human Resources Dr. Mandy Cohen said Friday.

"Although we made plans based on assurances from the CDC, we, like many states, have not received the supplies to run the tests that we need," Cohen said, noting that the 650 people who could be tested are just a fraction of the number of people in North Carolina who meet guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

North Carolina has just two cases of coronavirus infection: a man in Wake County and a man in Chatham County. But their immediate family members and others who have come into contact with them are being tested.

So far, 19 people in the state have been tested for coronavirus, officials said.

"We have adequate capacity to test," Gov. Roy Cooper said. "There are supplies, however, that you need to extract DNA to be able to analyze the sample, and our lab has been waiting for these supplies from the CDC. ... That affects the capacity for us to test."

Labs at UNC Health and Duke Health can start running their own coronavirus tests next week, Cohen said, but the shortage of supplies from the CDC will likely hamper their efforts as well.

Burlington-based LabCorp has developed its own test and began Thursday testing samples submitted from across the country, she said. Because of the volume of work the company will be doing, the turnaround time for a coronavirus test there will be three to four days, compared with one day at North Carolina's state lab, she said.

"LabCorp is going to be using their own test, so they won't be limited by the supply issue that we're experiencing at our state lab," she said. "This will help with some of the volume we're going to see, but it's going to take some time to ramp up."

To ensure the state doesn't run out of tests, officials have set up a priority system, focusing first on the highest-risk people, Cohen said.

"We want to make sure the highest-risk folks are getting into the testing queue,” she said.

One Wake County woman told WRAL News on Friday that she believes she was exposed to coronavirus a business trip to Germany and Switzerland but hasn't been tested.

After returning home, she said, she started feeling sick, and she knew that people she was in contact with on her trip had been confirmed to have coronavirus.

"I alerted the [Wake County] health department I had a minor cold," she said. "A nurse just took my information, and she confided, 'I don’t know what to do with your case. We will give you a call back.'"

When nearly a full day passed without a callback, she contacted WRAL. Shortly after a reporter called county officials about the case, the woman got a call from the nurse again.

She is now under a two-week self-quarantine and will receive calls from the health department daily to check up on her.

County spokeswoman Dara Demi said in an email that health officials called the woman as promised and asked her to limit exposure to other people. The county's Public Health Division has been swamped with calls from the public about coronavirus in recent days, Demi said.

"We have a standardized process in place to triage these calls. We will respond in a timely manner, based on the nature of the inquiry," she said.

The woman said she was worried about the slow response because she has four children who attend Wake County public schools.

"They are healthy and probably will remain relatively healthy, but what if they, for some terrible reason, they carry [the virus] to their schools for some other kids that are more vulnerable of health,” she said.

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