03-10-2020, 11:46 AM
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=907094363046329&ref=watch_permalink
Hawaii is going to start using their ILI (influenza like illnesses) network to test for COVID-19 in patients that have symptoms but test negative for influenza. This will start to randomly sample widely across the islands to find community spread (good news!) Still only 22 samples tested - 2 positives, 20 negatives. Just 250 tests possible per week at the State lab so not everyone who is negative for flu will be tested (not good news)
Also private labs are going to help test, although it can take longer as samples have to go to the mainland. Kaiser testing also coming online in about 2 weeks.
ETA: Random thought - there are about 350 babies born each week in Hawaii so the % of the population tested will actually go down with only 250 tests being performed per week...
http://hhdw.org/health-reports-data/data...irth-data/
Hawaii is going to start using their ILI (influenza like illnesses) network to test for COVID-19 in patients that have symptoms but test negative for influenza. This will start to randomly sample widely across the islands to find community spread (good news!) Still only 22 samples tested - 2 positives, 20 negatives. Just 250 tests possible per week at the State lab so not everyone who is negative for flu will be tested (not good news)
Also private labs are going to help test, although it can take longer as samples have to go to the mainland. Kaiser testing also coming online in about 2 weeks.
ETA: Random thought - there are about 350 babies born each week in Hawaii so the % of the population tested will actually go down with only 250 tests being performed per week...
http://hhdw.org/health-reports-data/data...irth-data/