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Quest Diagnostics Rolls Out Virus Tests in California

Quest Diagnostics Rolls Out Virus Tests, Starting in California

(Bloomberg) -- Quest Diagnostics Inc. made coronavirus tests available on Monday in California as part of a broader roll-out meant to dramatically expand the U.S.’s capacity to identify new cases.

The company’s effort began when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave companies greater leeway to develop their own tests Feb. 29, Chief Executive Officer Steve Rusckowski said in an interview. Quest sprang into action, obtaining specimens of the virus from South Korea, he said.

U.S. coronavirus testing availability has lagged far behind the needs of public health workers on the front lines. Until recently, testing was also supposed to be restricted largely to those with known exposure to the disease. As a result, it’s likely that the official tally of infections has fallen behind the actual number of cases.

The importance of new testing capacity was underscored at an industry conference in Washington last week, when Rusckowski and others joined a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the Trump administration’s response. Pence hosted a meeting at the White House the following day, and asked testing companies what they needed to get up and running, Rusckowski said.

Another U.S. testing provider, LabCorp, said Thursday that it would begin doing its own tests that day.

Fewer than 6,000 samples from Americans suspected of the coronavirus infection have been tested so far, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said Saturday. More than one specimen is tested per patient to confirm a diagnosis, so the figure translates to a smaller number of individual patients.

On Monday, Nancy Messonnier, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a news briefing that 78 state and local public-health labs across 50 states now have the capacity to test up to 75,000 people for Covid-19.

Quest, which works closely with government agencies like the CDC, had been considering coronavirus testing for weeks.

Its test was validated last week and will be rolled out to facilities in Virginia and Boston in coming weeks. The company expects capacity to increase to tens of thousands of tests a week within the next six weeks. The tests will be processed from patient samples taken in health-care facilities like hospitals and doctor’s offices.

Patients who are suspected to have Covid-19 should discuss with their physician the best way to obtain testing, Quest said last week. Quest’s own facilities won’t be collecting specimens, it said.

To shift testing demands to regions with the appropriate capabilities, Quest has also been working with rivals like LabCorp, BioReference and Sonic Healthcare as well as academic institutions with lab testing capabilities, according to Rusckowski.

--With assistance from John Tozzi.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Court in New York at ecourt1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net, Timothy Annett

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.