RICHMOND, Va. (WAVY) — More testing moving forward, and more emphasis on a vulnerable population: That’s what the Virginia Department of Health is promising when it comes to testing for coronavirus.
VDH says it has ramped up its testing from three months ago, when the disease began to spread in the U.S.
“Since that time we have expanded our testing capability and capacity from performing just a few tests per week to performing or having the ability to test up to 600 patients per day,” said Dr. Denise Toney, director of Consolidated Laboratory Services.
That’s just the public state labs. Add to that the testing being done by more than a dozen hospital systems — along with university medical labs at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University — and about 6,500 Virginians are getting a test each day, according to VDH.
The department is now zeroing in on a goal of 100 nursing homes in a partnership with the Virginia National Guard.
“Currently for this week, all of the National Guard testing teams are booked with those efforts,” said Michael Keatts, one of the department’s regional health emergency coordinators. “And they’re continued to be scheduled in the weeks ahead.”
VDH can increase testing because it’s getting reinforcements of necessary supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency of “multiple shipments of collection swabs and transport media that will be arriving throughout this month,” Keatts said.
Health officials on the Eastern Shore say the majority of their more than 500 cases of coronavirus involve workers at the area’s two poultry plants, Perdue and Tyson.
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VDH says it’s holding a community testing event in that area, offering free drive-thru testing to begin Friday morning at 10 at Eastern Shore Community College, and run again starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday as long as supplies last.