Mayo Clinic bulks up testing capabilities
Mayo Clinic has confirmed its daily COVID-19 testing capacity is increasing once again. By the time Gov. Tim Walz’s executive order directing Minnesotans to stay home takes effect at 11:59 p.m. Friday, the Clinic says it will likely be able to process 5,000 tests in a single day.
Dr. Bobbi Pritt, director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory in Mayo Clinic's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, said the increase would come “in the next couple days.” She added the increase was thanks in part to the addition of a third test supplier, Abbott Diagnostics. (The two existing tests already in Mayo’s arsenal were developed by Roche Diagnostics and the Clinic itself.)
Dr. Pritt said the addition of a third supplier, coupled with expanded investments in the two existing tests, provides the Clinic added assurances against any supply-related hurdles that may arise in the future.
“If one [test] were to go down, or if there were a nationwide shortage of supplies, we could then have a backup plan,” said Dr. Pritt. “We’re trying to be judicious in this whole process. By having two international manufacturers and a locally-made test combined, we’re confident that we’re going to be able to provide these high numbers of tests.”
Mayo’s announcement comes as the state of Minnesota prepares to enact a stay-at-home order for at least the next two weeks. In a Wednesday press conference, Gov. Walz said his executive order was meant to keep Minnesota’s intensive care unit [ICU] beds from being overrun in the coming weeks.
By keeping people at home, Gov. Walz said, the state has extra time to build up the number of ICU beds in the state and avoid being at capacity — so when people inevitably leave their homes and possibly spread the virus again, the health care system is better equipped to weather the storm.
“Here in Minnesota, our attempt is to move the infection rates out, buy us time to have a surge of ICU units, and then move to the testing phase,” Gov. Walz said. “So when the second wave of this comes through, we can flatten the curve and we can keep [people needing the ICU] under the numbers that we need.”
It has ‘changed everything’
At Mayo’s lab testing facilities, lab work for elective procedures and routine checkups has been put on pause to deal with the massive influx of COVID-19 tests. Dr. Pritt said daily work inside these facilities has been upended.
“It’s completely changed everything,” Dr. Pritt said. “We’re pulling people from other areas of the lab to work in the [COVID-19] testing areas. You have some areas that are incredibly busy, other areas that are quiet, and some areas where we’re telling people to stay home.”
Photo courtesy Mayo Clinic
Mayo had previously announced an ability to test a few thousand tests per day, after starting at around a few hundred per day with their own test. The increased capacity has already helped matters in the state — over the weekend, Mayo’s lab helped clear a 1,700-test backlog of untested COVID-19 samples held by the Minnesota Department of Health.
Still, tests continue to pour in from Rochester and across the state, thanks to collection sites at various Mayo Clinic Health System locations. Dr. Pritt said it’s important Mayo doesn’t face a backlog of its own, in order to maintain their one-day turnaround time.
“We don’t want to take on more than we can, and we also still want to be able to provide a 24-hour turnaround time,” said Dr. Pritt. “Otherwise, we feel it’s not really helpful to have a very delayed result.”
With a limited number of tests available, Dr. Pritt acknowledged the need for “some sort of prioritization in a pandemic.” She also cited priorities from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as guidelines for testing through the Clinic:
People already hospitalized and showing symptoms, plus the healthcare workers caring for the patient.
Patients in long-term care facilities, people over 65, or people with underlying health conditions.
Mayo Clinic currently operates or assists in operating three COVID-19 sample collection sites in Rochester: a drive-through site at their northwest family clinic along 41st Street Northwest, a downtown walk-in facility at the corner of Third Avenue and Fourth Street Southwest, and a joint effort between Olmsted County Public Health, Olmsted Medical Center, and the Clinic at Graham Park (now open daily).
Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.
Cover photo courtesy Mayo Clinic
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