KY has in-house capacity for coronavirus testing. State still without any confirmed cases.
The Kentucky Department of Public Health has the capacity to conduct between 800 and 1,000 tests for potential cases of novel coronavirus, should that become necessary.
As of Monday, Kentucky’s public health department acquired the capability to test for the viral respiratory illness, also known as COVID-19, at its state laboratory in Frankfort, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday afternoon during a media conference with acting Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Eric Friedlander and Department for Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack.
Before this week, the only option for state health officials, like many in the region, was to send their test kits to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the state had tested or was in the process of testing seven people -- though it could jump to 10 by the end of Thursday, Beshear said. So far, four had come back negative, and three were still pending. However, Beshear assured, “nothing about them would suggest there’s a high likelihood that those tests would come back positive.”
Local testing capability means expedited results. If a test is submitted before noon, for example, the result could come later that day, whereas before, it would have been at least a 24-hour turnaround. As the virus spreads, expect commercial labs to pop up in the coming weeks, which means “we’ll be able to test more broadly,” Dr. Stack said.
“The aspiration and the active effort is to make sure the test is available to anyone who needs to be tested,” he said.
Kentucky still has zero confirmed cases of the respiratory illness, which first popped up in Wuhan, China in December. Since then, more than 93,000 people across the world have been infected, according to the latest figures from the World health Organization. Nearly 200 people across the United States have confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, and at least 11 have died.
Tennessee confirmed its first case of the virus on Thursday, making it the closest state so far with a confirmed transmission, but Beshear said that proximity “doesn’t really concern me.”
Even though a confirmed case of novel coronavirus is inevitable in Kentucky, Beshear said that likelihood shouldn’t scare people.
“We should expect to get at least one case,” Beshear said. But “just because we have one case doesn’t mean there’s a statewide crisis by any means,” he said. “We want people to be vigilant, not scared.”
He warned Kentuckians who may find themselves vulnerable with fear, to “be suspicious of scammers and con artists claiming to have a cure” for COVID-19, including people posing as the CDC asking for Kentuckians to send sensitive information through email, or research organizations claiming to raise money for a virus vaccine to help victims.
Dr. Stack added, “the average risk to Kentuckians remains very low at this time, and we’re working very hard to keep it as low as we possibly can.”
Likewise, he said, it’s “premature to speculate on any impact” an outbreak of the virus in Kentucky might have on large events where crowds gather, Stack said. “Should there be any need to advise, we’ll do that based on science and evidence, but it is far too early.”
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an $8.3 billion spending package for response and mitigation efforts to combat coronavirus across the country. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, was the only senator to vote against the bill.
In response to Paul’s lone “no” vote, Beshear said, “we need [all members of the U.S. House and Senate] to vote for this funding. This is a time to put partisanship aside.”
Visit https://chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dph/Pages/covid19.aspx for daily updates on COVID-19 in Kentucky.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
