ITHACA, N.Y. — Tompkins County has two officially confirmed cases of COVID-19, and with New York State reportedly likely to see increased numbers of confirmed cases for several days to come, Cayuga Medical Center, working through Cayuga Medical Associates, has quickly set up a drive-by testing lab that launched operations yesterday.
Dr. Doug MacQueen, Infectious Disease Specialist for Cayuga Center for Infectious Diseases, said the testing site is on Craft Road in Ithaca, where the Cayuga Centers for Dermatology and Women’s Health and is located.
“This was in the works last week,” he said, “but with the case Saturday in town, we did all the work to get it up and running in just a few days.”
The testing hours are 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Individuals who wish to get tested don’t need an appointment but do need an electronic testing order sent ahead of time from a doctor.
A physician can order the test for those who are showing symptoms of cough, fever, chest pains, or shortness of breath. At the site, patients can drive up and receive a nasal swab, without having to exit their vehicle.
“People have to remember, that once they are tested, they will need to be isolated at home until the test comes back negative,” MacQueen said.
Health department personnel will be monitoring people who have been tested to be sure they are in seclusion until their test results are obtained, said MacQueen.
By around 5 p.m. Monday, around 70 people had been tested, MacQueen said. He said that the primary people who were tested on Monday were from Tompkins County, and they were a wide variety of age ranges.
Testing is ongoing at urgent care in Cortland and Ithaca as well, but those who are not sick enough to need an urgent care evaluation are being routed to the drive-by site for testing.
At Cayuga’s primary treatment centers, Dr. MacQueen said waiting rooms are split up to separate those symptomatic with COVID-19 from patients presenting with other symptoms and conditions, and HVAC units are re-routing airways as an additional precaution.
After patients are tested, how soon can they expect a result? “2-3 days is our hope, Dr. MacQueen said, “and that is what we’ve been seeing for the last couple days.”
If the test is positive, a patient will be quarantined until symptoms improve, which will be a minimum of 14 days. TCHD will order follow-up nasal swabs, and a patient needs two negative swabs in a row to come out of isolation, he said.
Depending on what other resources available, testing might be able to expand to another location in Tompkins County, MacQueen said.
Leading up to having this site up and running, MacQueen said their primary challenge has been balancing the anticipated needs of COVID-19 patients with all other patients, with a focus on ensuring maximum safety for both groups.
“Basically we’ve been thinking and looking at this for a few months now, making sure we can take care of potential virus patients in the emergency room, the hospital, and the urgent care centers, in a way that will keep employees and other patients safe as well,” said MacQueen.
They have adequate personal protective equipment for employees to keep them and others safe, he said, but access to increased testing capacity has been the next urgent need. While it is currently possible to quickly collect the specimen, it then has to be sent to a New York State Health Department lab, where there is currently a backlog and a minimum of two days wait for results.
“We’d love to have the ability to test more people,” said MacQueen. “We’d much prefer to hear back quicker, but the specimen gets in line with everyone who has had a test sent in from Albany. We heard for a couple weeks now that testing capacity would be expanded, but so far it hasn’t been.”
There are private labs across the country, he added, called reference labs, but using them for test results would take about the same amount of time to turnaround.
The virus transmission occurs through respiratory droplets, MacQueen said. If an infected person coughs or sneezes, the droplets can linger in the air for a few minutes, and anyone within a few feet of them could breathe them in. Breathing on someone would probably not pass the virus, but talking to someone probably can, he said.
The highest transmission rates occur when people are at their sickest at the peak of the disease and less frequent with fewer symptoms. However, most people, he said, from the time they are infected will have time before symptoms present, as much as up to 14 days, but there are also those who never develop symptoms as well.
A more accurate mortality rate will develop as more comprehensive testing is done, he said, and it is likely to be lowered as a result.
If you think you might have the virus, and have fever or cough, Dr. MacQueen advised calling your primary care doctor to get guidance about whether or not testing is warranted and to do so before going to the emergency room. This will help to ensure that people who are most at risk will be seen and medical centers are not unnecessarily overwhelmed.
“We’re hearing from New York State that they are slowly ramping up efforts at adding capacity for testing,” he said. “We’re just in the beginning of this, so anything else they can do will transpire in next few weeks.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the hours of operation for the drive-thru testing location on Craft Road. The location is open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.