Indiana is banding labs together in an effort to double the daily COVID-19 testing capacity. State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box announced Wednesday that the Indiana State Department of Health is joining with nine other labs to form a lab testing network.
That will make it easier to get supplies from national and international manufacturers by placing larger orders. “To launch the lab testing network, the state successfully placed approximately $60 million in bulk orders of testing reagents for use by the participating labs,” Box said during Wednesday’s COVID-19 press conference. “The labs will, in turn, purchase their reagents at cost from the state.”
The state will also help labs get more testing machines starting in August. Box said the plan is to get machines that use different types of reagents, to allow testing to continue if one particular type is in short supply.
Meanwhile, 11 counties will be losing state-sponsored COVID-19 testing sites, at least temporarily, to allow the state to test every nursing home staff member. The OptumServe sites in Jasper and Cass counties, among others, will be converted to mobile sites for the next three weeks.
Box said nursing homes have the option of testing their own staff members or having Optum conduct on-site testing. “This is the largest testing operation the state has done during this pandemic,” Box noted. “We are testing staff from a total of 520 skilled nursing facilities.”
Box said the state is working with local health departments to make sure the places that are losing their testing sites have other options available.
