DHS officials look to build on COVID-19 testing strategy

Department of Health Services officials said Monday they’re looking for ways to build on the state’s COVID-19 testing strategy as capacity grows.

There are 12 labs in Wisconsin that are now capable of performing 3,563 tests daily, according to state officials. That’s more than double the number of new positive and negative tests that the state reported Monday.

DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm said they have prioritized testing for hospitalized patients, healthcare workers and vulnerable populations, like those living in long-term care settings.

“We’ve gotten into a groove in that space, and our capacity is starting to expand, which is exactly what we wanted to do,” she told reporters. The “next turn of the crank” is to look at opening the “pipeline a little.”

For instance, they could do more targeted testing around outbreaks at nursing homes, like one currently occurring in Sheboygan County, to ensure they’re meeting the needs of that facility and others.

“That is something that we very much want to pursue as well as other kinds of targeted testing strategies that push us to the limit of our capacity but that really help us advance the public health and our knowledge of where we are with this outbreak,” she said.

Palm said they’re never going to be in a place where asymptomatic people should be tested or everyone needs to be tested. She’s also stressed that any ramp-up in testing will be limited by the number of available supplies, an issue facing labs across the country.

Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases at DHS, said another strategy could be more surveillance.

Seeing how many people with mild symptoms in certain areas of the state are positive for COVID-19 compared to other diseases could boost their understanding of the speed and direction of the epidemic.

“We’re looking at ways to use these resources wisely in order to understand the epidemic and stay ahead of it as much as we can in the coming months,” he said.

Westergaard noted that they’re getting data beyond the 12 labs in Wisconsin. DHS said in late March they were receiving results from at least 40 different clinical and reference labs.

Last week, Gov. Tony Evers announced a public-private partnership with UW Health, Marshfield Clinic Health System, Exact Sciences and Promega to double in-state test processing. The partnership builds on work done by the State Lab of Hygiene and Milwaukee Health Department.

Aspirus said Monday that it began in-house testing last Friday at its Wausau hospital for hospitalized and critically ill patients, residents of long-term care facilities and symptomatic healthcare workers.

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