Public health experts say delays in testing continue to hinder attempts to track and contain the spread of disease.
As demand for coronavirus testing surges around the nation, laboratories that process samples are again experiencing backlogs that have left anxious patients and their doctors waiting days — sometimes a week or more — for results.
At the city and state levels, testing delays could mask persistent rises in case numbers and could cloud ways to combat the coronavirus, as health officials continue to find themselves one step behind the virus’s rapid and often silent spread, experts said.
Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, acknowledged the dangers associated with such delays in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on Sunday. Continue reading.