KNOXVILLE, Tenn — Continued lags in getting back COVID-19 test results from the lab has prompted the Knox County Health Department to raise a red flag.
Delays of 10 days or more are now being seen in getting results, according to Charity Menefee, the department's director of communicable and environmental diseases.
Timely test results are one of five "benchmarks" the department follows to see how the community is progressing in the fight against the highly contagious disease. Others include the rate of positive cases coming in and the death rate.
As a result of continued testing delays, KCHD this week moved to show the benchmark as a red light, the kind of negative trend authorities don't want to see.
"We have used other labs in the past that are no longer able to support our testing," Menefee said Wednesday during a department briefing. "We are currently reaching out to other labs in an effort to diversify our lab partners. We hope this might help cut down the lagtime for our testing here at KCHD."
American Esoteric Laboratories, or AEL, is the county's current lab server.
Delays in getting back results are a problem in Tennessee and across the nation. That's partly because more people are getting tested.
Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said Tuesday it may be several weeks before the lag can be fixed.
"We would always want to expand testing as much as we can. Right now we have to fix the lab issue first," she said.
When results are delayed, health authorities can't always get an accurate reading on the current rate of positive cases. That affects the ability of experts to judge the spread of the virus.
With COVID-19 continuing to spread, KCHD also is showing an ongoing red light for new cases and for the rate of deaths from virus complications.
Fifteen Knox County residents have now died from the coronavirus, the latest being 94-year-old and 56-year-old males. The department does not provide more specific information about the fatalities.
As of Wednesday, Knox County has more current cases, 906, than recovered cases, 893, according to Menefee. Forty-five residents are currently hospitalized.
Another county benchmark that measures hospital bed space availability is sitting at a yellow, or cautionary, light.
The only light of the five benchmarks that remains green is the timeliness of case investigations.
"We know that compared to other jurisdictions some of our metrics may look low, which is a good thing," Menefee said. "However, what we are concerned about is the rate at which our metrics are rising, and we are seeing that across the board."