UW School of Medicine ready to test 1,000 samples per day for coronavirus

[uppityperson]

Source: Mynorthwest and King5

Just four days after academic labs were given permission from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct testing, the University of Washington School of Medicine rolled out a new test that the university says can analyze 1,000 samples for coronavirus per day — and hopes to increase this number soon.

Dr. Keith Jerome, who directs the UW School of Medicine Molecular Virology Laboratory and the UW Medicine Virology Laboratory, said at a press conference Wednesday that the lab has tested 200 specimens for coronavirus since Monday. He and his colleagues anticipate reaching up to 1,500 specimens per day by the end of the week.
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Right now, the UW School of Medicine and the state lab in Shoreline are the only labs conducting coronavirus testing in the Puget Sound area.

UW School of Medicine research scientists are working around the clock — 24 hours per day — testing specimens for coronavirus. They hope to soon have an 8-hour turnaround for results....(more)

Read more: https://mynorthwest.com/1749312/uw-school-of-medicine-coronavirus/

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It's a welcome start to be able to see how widespread this is.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/uw-medicine-coronavirus-lab-testing/281-329a50dc-71e6-42e9-90da-c91db2d28f88

[LonePirate]

1. Those med students are definitely earning their degrees and doing us all a huge favor there.

[du_grad]

5. Med students do not run testing!!!!

Medical technologists, now known as CLS's (clinical laboratory scientists) are running these tests in microbiology laboratories equipped with molecular testing abilities.

I am a retired medical technologist, M.T. (ASCP), who retired from a large clinical microbiology laboratory (not in WA state) in 2016. Lab personnel are the unrecognized people behind all of this testing. Nurses, med students, doctors...NONE of those people do laboratory testing in hospitals. Molecular tests take training and understanding of the dangers of cross contamination and specimen handling.

I wish them luck. I cannot imagine a molecular workload of 1000 specimens a day.

[WA-03 Democrat]

2. Thank you!

8 hours to turn around sounds great.

[Leghorn21]

3. Rock steady, y'all, and

***THANK YOU***

[greenjar_01]

4. Number of *diagnosed* positive cases in Seattle metro bout to blow up

Lots of folks walking around with this shit.

[BigmanPigman]

6. You know it!

That is why the numbers have been so low...no tests. Duh! I hope the fucking moron loses bigly due to his role in this delay in the US.

[lapfog_1]

7. As trump would say "Bing bing bing bong bong"

we have a winner.

I believe the number of cases here is 25 X more than the confirmed count.

[uppityperson]

8. Yup.