MACON, Ga. — The state health department says they are processing about 50 COVID-19 tests a day at their lab. Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey says by next week they hope to complete 100 a day.
They also hope to open testing sites statewide, perhaps as early as Monday.
You can get swabbed at your local hospital or healthcare provider to see if you have the virus. However, health officials will decide who actually needs to be tested based on CDC guidelines.
- Does the patient have a fever or symptoms of respiratory illness?
- Have they recently traveled from somewhere like Italy or China?
- Have they been exposed to someone with coronavirus?
If you have reason to believe you might have COVID-19, you should call your doctor's office ahead of time to let them know, so they can keep other patients and staff members healthy. If they think you need to be tested based on those CDC guidelines, they'll do a respiratory swab.
Dr. Lance Slade at Primary Pediatrics says the swab is then sent to the state health department for testing. Testing is not done locally.
Michael Hokanson, spokesman for the North Central Health District, says, at this point, all swabs are sent to either the state health lab, or a private lab, like LabCorp. Then, they're verified by the CDC.
Slade says his office has as many swabs as necessary to test children, but so far he has not had to take any samples.
“Honestly, it feels like someone is taking brain tissue away when they do it right, and it doesn't feel great, but it's effective. Then, it will be secured in a medium and sent to the Department of Public Health,” says Slade.
"We are, right now, testing the most severely ill people," says Toomey. "The majority of the time, 80 percent of the time, this is a very mild disease."
At a Thursday news conference, Toomey said they hope to have some new testing sites open statewide by next week.
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