Who Can Get A Coronavirus Test?
As cases of COVID-19 spread, many people are hearing of friends and family who have been exhibiting symptoms. But many of those people are having a hard time getting approved to take an official test to confirm it.
Those who have been refused tests are being told to quarantine at home and to manage symptoms by their own accord unless they become ill enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room. So what’s the deal? Why are we hearing about celebrities like Idris Elba ― who wasn’t experiencing any symptoms at the time of his diagnosis ― getting tested while other who are sick are not?
Here’s a (brutal, frustrating) breakdown on how the testing process is working and some advice on how you can potentially get screened:
Testing is categorized by three priority levels
According to Dr. Gary W. Procop, vice chair and director for virology at Cleveland Clinic, medical facilities are working with limited resources. As a result, they’re prioritizing testing those with symptoms in high-risk groups, like older adults and those with compromised immune systems. Anyone admitted to the hospital and demonstrating a more serious illness in line with COVID-19 is being tested as well.
“So we’re not testing, let’s say, a young, otherwise healthy individual who has an upper respiratory tract infection, as we really would not do anything to change the recommendation to that person,” Procop said. He added, “If we had all the tests in the world, we’d test them. But the fact of the matter is testing is limited and there’s not all the testing in the world.”
Dr. Tista Ghosh, medical director at the Grand Rounds health care company, said the current guidelines are breaking people into three priority categories:
Priority one: Hospitalized patients and medical staff.
The goal here is to treat those who are the sickest and also to control health care-associated infections, Ghosh said. “We want to make sure health care workers know who they’re...
