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RICHMOND —Virginia health officials will soon issue new guidance making it easier for nursing home residents to be tested for COVID-19.

State health commissioner Norman Oliver said that patients with symptoms that align with COVID-19, and meet other risk factors, might be eligible for the test without undergoing testing for other respiratory illnesses.

“It's very clear that our most vulnerable population is the elderly, particularly elderly people who live in nursing homes and other long term care facilities, assisted living facilities and so on,” Oliver said during a briefing with reporters. “We've always had, as part of our testing criteria, allowing for increased testing in those facilities, but we're thinking about changing it so that it's even less restrictive.”

Oliver said that a slate of tests for respiratory illnesses can take up to a week to be completed. For ill, elderly patients in a long-term care facility, that might be too long to wait, Oliver said.

The new guidance is bolstered by a slight increase in the state’s testing capacity. As of midday Friday, Virginia had the capacity to perform roughly 1,000 COVID-19 tests — higher capacity than the state has had in past weeks.