COVID-19 testing increasing in the US but may be lagging in WNY

Yesterday saw the first big spike in COVID testing indicating that COVID testing is becoming more wide-spread.  Testing for COVID-19 increased by almost 19% in US. 

This is generally brings good news.

As you would expect the number of new COVID positive cases also increased.  Part of the good news is that over 81% of the folks presenting for testing with COVID symptoms are NEGATIVE.  The other piece of good news is that the morbidity (death) rate from COVID-19 continues to decrease as we get a true sense of the number of positive cases.  Yesterday, the death rate was 1.7% and today with expanded testing it has dropped to 1.4%, a decrease of almost 18%.  This continues to confirm that COVID-19 is not particularly virulent and in most cases does not cause severe symptoms.

In Erie County, as with the rest of the US we have experienced an increase in positive COVID cases (now 27) with NO deaths to date. 

Unfortunately, the EC Department of Health does not provide consistent surveillance data like the CDC so we don’t know how many tests have been performed and what the percent positive and negative rates are. There is reason to believe that in Erie County testing is not moving to production levels as it appears to be in the rest of the country.  In one of their March 18th press releases the EC Department of Health made the following statement:

“Until further supplies for testing and sample collection are received by Erie County, ECDOH will not be scheduling sample collection or accepting samples for testing at its Public Health Lab. When we are able to resume testing at our Public Health Lab, we will make that announcement.”

This is concerning as aggressive testing is a key to slowing the spread of virus and COVID-19.  In addition, it informs public health officials as to potential epicenters of outbreak and allows for rapid and targeted containment responses.

Another piece of good news is that testing has begun to find existing drugs that might help alleviate severe symptoms of COVID-19 and reduce the death rate even more.  The good news is that most of these drugs are already on the market and being used for other purposes (e.g. HIV, malaria) so they are readily available.  The tests for these drugs are just ramping up but results should be available quickly.  More on this in coming days.