Louisiana governor on coronavirus tests: 'A presumptive positive is a positive. Period' Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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I don't share the concerns and and I don't first, I don't know if you're saying that they're concerned about how long it takes for us to test here at the public lab or whether or its CD sees the length of time. I don't share the concern because not a single test done by any public health lab in the United States of America that was presumptively positive has been ruled negative by the CDC. So a presumptive positive is a positive period. And so so I don't think we need to worry about how long it might take for the CDC to confirm it as such. And that is not a use of our energy, our time. That is helpful. We have a positive test when when we have a presumptive positive here in our public lamp. Can I jump in on that one, too? Governor, this is important for you. Oughta help your viewers and your listeners in your readers understand. We live in a convenience culture where you can go into a minute clinic and get tested for strep throat and find out within half an hour whether or not you have strep throat. I sent for important people to know. That is not the type of test that we have right now for Corona virus. It takes anywhere from four to six hours to run the test. That's just to run the test. We have limited places that can actually do the test, so you have to have the provider take a sample. Pride has got to see the patient providers got to make a decision. Providers gotta get a sample, that sample that has to be transported to a lab in Louisiana to the state public health. Let that can take a certain amount of time, usually several hours to 1/2 a day because they're doing pickups twice a day once it gets to the state lab, then has to be run. And again, we wanna wait sometimes to run those samples so that we don't use up all the wells in the test kit so important. People know that it takes typically across the country and not just in Louisiana but across the country, 24 to 48 hours a minimum to get those test results back and sometimes longer. If you have other delays in the process and I don't know if you wanted to jump in and talk about the profits here yet, and I would just note. So we do have a statewide quarter that's that's bringing samples later today. You know the with the governor's direction and support. We'll also be really increasing the capacity for New Orleans testing. But the CDC and the federal government also gave us assistance with recent guidance, allowing us to move from two swabs toe one swab. So two samples that were testing per patient toh one page one sample that expands our capacity again on that plate with limited. Well, so we are, as I mentioned this morning, you know, 84 hours into our first case of Corona virus and state, and we have been on the hour adapting, learning and continue to expand our capacity to meet the demand. We're gonna continue to do that at the governor's direct