TUCSON, Ariz. — The CDC has broadened their guidelines for who can get tested, but the Pima County Health Department says they don't have enough testing kits to follow those recommendations.
“Every local health department and state health department I’m sure is rushing to figure out how they will handle it,” said Interim Director Dr. Bob England.
England says they have made a few slight changes, but for the most part the ability to get tested for coronavirus is restricted to a few qualifying factors.
“if every doc who wanted a patient tested were to send a sample to the state lab I’m pretty sure they'd be out of test kits in one day.”
Pima County will be following the old guidelines. Only three kinds of people will qualify for testing.
Those with symptoms who have had close contact with a coronavirus patient. Those who require hospitalization and have traveled to impacted areas, and those hospitalized and no other diagnosis has been found.
“The way we will do it for now, and this can change tomorrow, but for now we are going to stick to the old criteria, but we will add other countries where it is widely circulating instead of just China.’
Those countries are Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea.
“We will add broader criteria and allow as much testing as we can as fast as we can we just don't have the capacity right now.”
England says private labs and research facilities are working to provide more kits. He says he hopes more kits become available because more testing would likely prove the virus has many more mild cases than the current data shows.
If you have concerns there is a new hotline for questions. That number is 520-626-6016
