Philadelphia Medical Reserve Corps volunteers (from left) Megan Boyle, Marina Spitkovskaya, Jamie Huot, and Stephen Bonett, all of whom are nurses, walk to the swabbing tent as the city's coronavirus testing site prepared to open next to Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia on Friday, March 20, 2020. The site, which opened Friday afternoon, is the first city-run location where people can be swabbed to determine if they have the coronavirus. At the time of opening, it was only for people with symptoms who are over 50 and healthcare workers with symptoms.
In reversal, federal support for coronavirus testing sites continues
By Jeff Brady/NPR
Philadelphia Medical Reserve Corps volunteers (from left) Megan Boyle, Marina Spitkovskaya, Jamie Huot, and Stephen Bonett, all of whom are nurses, walk to the swabbing tent as the city's coronavirus testing site prepared to open next to Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia on Friday, March 20, 2020. The site, which opened Friday afternoon, is the first city-run location where people can be swabbed to determine if they have the coronavirus. At the time of opening, it was only for people with symptoms who are over 50 and healthcare workers with symptoms.
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The Department of Health and Human Services is stepping back from a plan to end support on Friday for community-based coronavirus testing sites around the country.
Instead the agency says local authorities can choose whether they want to transition to running the programs themselves or continue with federal oversight and help.
The news came after NPR reported yesterday that some local officials were critical of plans to end the program before the pandemic peaks.
“The federal government is not abandoning any of the community-based test sites. I want that to be loud and clear,” Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health said during a conference call with reporters.
Under the community-based testing site program, the federal government supplies expertise, testing materials, protective equipment and lab contracts to local authorities at 41 sites.
Giroir says the program has been successful, testing more than 77,000 people so far, mostly health care workers and first responders. He says results show about 20% of those tested were infected with the coronavirus.
In suburban Philadelphia, Montgomery County officials said they would have had to close a testing site without federal help.
“I’m extremely relieved that HHS has reversed its decision,” says Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.
Dean and five other Pennsylvania members of Congress, including Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, signed a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar asking him to reverse the decision.
“It was very counterintuitive and would have been detrimental to public health to stop the testing here in Montgomery County,” says Dean.
HHS and FEMA previously said the plan had always been to end federal help on April 10. They say the program was designed as a stop-gap until states, local governments and hospitals could get their own testing programs running.
While many hospitals and other medical facilities do have their own testing sites now, health officials warn there still needs to be more testing to stop the coronavirus from spreading.
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