State opening COVID-19 testing to all Georgians

Any Georgian can now get tested for COVID-19, regardless of whether they have symptoms of the disease, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday.

Kemp said the state has been ramping up its testing capacity to the point that there is now more testing supplies than demand for tests. Georgia health officials had initially reserved testing for select individuals, such as the elderly, first responders and long term care facility workers. That was later expanded to include anyone who thought they had symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Now, it has been expanded to the rest of Georgia’s population.

“As we continue to expand testing and screening for COVID-19, we must also focus on lab capacity to process the testing specimens,” Kemp said. “Right now, we have more than 60 testing sites with more supply than demand. In accordance with new CDC guidance, the Department of Public Health and district offices are now encouraging all Georgians — even if they are not experiencing symptoms — to schedule an appointment with their healthcare provider, local health department, or get a screening through the AU Health ExpressCare app.

“Dr. Toomey contacted local health directors today to ensure they are aware of this guidance. Let’s build on this momentum in the days and weeks to come.”

Although testing is increasing and a statewide shelter-in-place order has expired, health officials continue to encourage Georgians to keep following U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-encouraged guidelines, such as wearing masks in public and practicing social distancing.

But increasing testing capacity has been a major focus for state officials.

Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey said health officials across the state have done 110,000 tests in less than two weeks, beating a challenge she issued to get 100,000 tests done in a two-week period.

As of noon Saturday, there have been 235,324 COVID-19 tests administered in Georgia, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

“We needed to offer testing more broadly and that’s why we’ve opened up the criteria, as the governor said, that anyone who wants to get a test, regardless of their symptoms, can be tests so we’ll continue to prioritize first responders and others at high risk, such as health care workers, but we wanted to ensure that everyone who wants a test can get access to free testing through one of our sites.”

Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency Director Homer Bryson said the availability of test swabs and testing kits has been a critical part of how much testing the state has been able to do.

“That’s been a challenge for our state and the nation as a whole,” Bryson said. “Through Dr. Toomey’s work in Public Health, we’ve partnered and put into place contracts with private labs to increase capacity there, and I’m happy to say that, in conversations with FEMA, the CDC and the White House in the last several days, we have a commitment from the federal government to supply Georgia with 210,000 test swabs during the month of May. They’ll be coming into the state in weekly allocations, so I think our ability to ramp up testing is only going to increase over the next several weeks.”

Kemp said there are about 66 testing sites around the state now where Georgians can go to be tested for the disease. The governor also said the state is working on increasing lab capacity so labs that have been working on processing the tests do not become overwhelmed.

In addition to private labs, Augusta University has been helping with test processing.

“Our efficiencies at the labs, expanding labs, we’re looking at a lot of different options,” Kemp said. “We’ve had a whole team working on that over the last two or three days to really solve that problem.”

Photo: GPB