Coping with COVID: Kansas City fights with turnaround times on test results

As the number of people being tested for the coronavirus has increased in Kansas City over recent weeks, the ability to make a quick return with test results has decreased.

The slow-down in report results has posed a risk for effective contact tracing, a concern for health officials and local governments alike when deciding how they should handle public restrictions in their area.

Prior to the increase in testing, people could expect results within three to five days. Now, the same testing process can take a week to 10 days.

In waiting for the results to return, those who have unknowingly tested positive are likely to expose others.

Volume of testing has overwhelmed laboratories and supply chains handling the testing such as Lab Corp., Quest Diagnostics and Lee’s Summit-based Viracor Eurofins, who all face large backlogs.

Slowed delivery of results have made the test, trace, isolate strategy more difficult and harder to follow, although testing labs nationwide have boosted their testing capacity from 100,000 a day to more than 600,000.