Many employers in the U.S. have struggled to access COVID-19 tests for their employees and receive timely results. Some employers have discovered they can generally get test results in one to three days by avoiding large national labs like Quest and LabCorp and relying on smaller labs, The New York Times reported.
Daniel Castillo, MD, CMO of Matrix Medical Network, a company that connects businesses to testing labs, told the Times that one solution to sidestep testing backlogs is using labs in locations where the spread of the novel coronavirus is relatively contained.
Dr. Castillo and others in the industry said that significantly more employers could test their workers regularly by tapping into unused capacity at smaller labs.
However, an employer's decision to test its workers often depends more on economics than the availability of tests, the Times reported. Businesses for which an outbreak among employees would possibly halt operations are more likely to seek out testing. Employers are unlikely to carry out regular testing until it is cheaper and faster if an outbreak of COVID-19 wouldn't likely shut down business operations.
Read the full article here.
Editor's note: This article was updated Sept. 16 at 1:27 p.m. CT.