Amid escalating concern over the coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Kate Brown and state health officials offered contradictory and confusing claims Thursday about the availability of testing and how quickly more Oregonians can get tested.

They defended their decision to limit the state’s testing to only the most at-risk people and repeatedly declared that commercial labs are already providing tests in Oregon and that five local hospital systems would soon begin testing to meet growing demand.

But those claims appear ambitious if not altogether dubious, The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state’s health officer and epidemiologist, said at a news conference in Portland that commercial labs are “supporting our clinicians out in the community right now to offer testing.”

“We anticipate these additional hospital systems should be up and running in the next week,” he added, “and that will provide even more flexibility and opportunities to test here in Oregon.”

The newsroom, however, contacted a half-dozen of the state’s largest hospital chains, plus their lobbying arm, and found that only one would provide detailed information about how many tests would be available or promise testing capabilities by next week. Three others said they are participating in talks but shared no timeline for starting testing.

The newsroom also reached out to the nation’s two largest commercial labs that are processing coronavirus tests ordered by physicians. Both said they are currently performing only several thousand tests – across the entire nation – although availability would ramp up in the weeks ahead.

Neither Quest Diagnostics nor LabCorp would make specific commitments about access to tests in Oregon, although the newsroom has confirmed limited testing is available in the state.

Confusion over Oregon’s testing capacity could have life-and-death consequences as individuals who are infected with mild symptoms unknowingly pass the virus to others and as medical professionals try to decide who is eligible to be checked with a limited supply.

Oregon has now reported 30 individuals with COVID-19 out of more than 340 people tested, although none have died. Sidelinger said health officials believe 150 to 250 Oregonians actually may have the disease and that it could spread to 75,000 people by mid-May without measures like social distancing that the governor has instituted.

Testing shortages are a huge problem across the nation, not only in Oregon, creating a dramatic undercount of how many people actually are infected with the virus.

Ongoing problems with testing prompted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infection disease expert at the National Institutes of Health, to say publicly Thursday: “That is a failing. It is a failing, let’s admit it.”

At the Portland news conference, Brown at one point said the state had an “adequate amount” of coronavirus tests for the people most in need, only to say minutes later “we are concerned, frankly, about our testing capacity” to extend testing to other groups.

Oregon’s testing crunch has come under heightened scrutiny after Wednesday’s announcement that two elderly men at a veterans’ nursing home in Linn County tested positive for the virus. Those tests were quickly conducted by the state lab, but only after state officials learned they were set to be directed to the University of Washington.

Under strict guidelines for testing at the state lab, neither man appeared to qualify. Confusion remained a day later, with state officials saying they did not originally deny access to the state lab while hospital officials declined to say if they were routing specimens to Washington out of fear Oregon wouldn’t run tests. (Six more men at the nursing home tested positive Thursday, bringing the total to eight.)

Meanwhile, state, political and hospital officials could not provide clarity on which local hospital systems might soon offer coronavirus testing in response to repeated questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Brown’s office issued a statement earlier this week saying state health officials “have agreements with five hospital systems to conduct COVID-19 testing” but on Thursday her office wouldn’t provide the list.

The governor’s office referred questions to the health authority, which referred questions to the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, which said in a statement it was not involved in negotiations and “cannot confirm the names of those hospitals at this time.”

Officials privately said they’re worried publicizing the names might lead people seeking testing to line up outside hospital or lab facilities.

The four hospital systems that confirmed that they’re working toward testing are: Legacy Health, Kaiser Permanente, Providence Health & Services and OHSU Hospital. Officials for Asante, in southern Oregon, and PeaceHealth, in the Eugene area, said they’re not involved.

But three were noncommittal about timing and testing capacity.

“This is something that is under discussion but at this point in time, no decisions have been made,” Brian Terrett, a spokesman for Legacy Health, said in a statement.

As for Kaiser Permanente Northwest: “We will have more information next week on the date lab processing will begin and capacity,” spokesman Michael Foley said in a statement. But Foley cautioned: “This lab capability will not immediately change the priority criteria for which patients will be tested.”

Providence is “ramping up to meet the needs of our communities,” spokesman Gary Walker said in a statement. “We expect to have additional information about testing next week.”

OHSU said it could begin testing 40 to 150 specimens per day as soon as next Tuesday or Wednesday if it “has adequate supplies to support specimen collection and testing,” spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said in a statement.

Assuming that happens, OHSU “will scale up in subsequent weeks, in anticipation of a significant influx of critically ill patients requiring testing.”

Michael Cox, a spokesman for the hospital association, declined to identify the specific hospitals pursuing testing but said in a statement that “testing capacity will come on line in the coming weeks.”

Nik Blosser, the governor’s chief of staff, said he spent Thursday afternoon speaking with hospital officials and confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive that he was aware of a single hospital system that was ready to test quickly.

“There’s only one that seems like they’ll be ready to go next week,” he said, adding that state officials are providing the best information they can in a rapidly evolving situation.

The Oregonian/OregonLive also contacted the nation’s largest commercial labs to understand capacity to increase testing in the state. The inquiries came after Sidelinger, the state health officer, said: “If you want to know the exact numbers, you’d need to talk to them.”

LabCorp said in a statement that it nationally “is now able to perform several thousand tests per day and is rapidly adding new equipment and staff to create additional capacity.”

Quest Diagnostics hopes to triple its national capacity by expanding testing to two labs on the East Coast but is awaiting federal authorization.

“We expect to be able to perform tens of thousands of tests a week,” Quest said in a statement, “within the next six weeks.”

-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt

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