{"id":64902,"date":"2020-04-29T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-now-offering-widespread-community-testing-for-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2020-04-29T18:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T18:10:00","slug":"mercy-now-offering-widespread-community-testing-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-now-offering-widespread-community-testing-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercy now offering widespread community testing for COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mercy
Mercy Regional Medical Center says it can now offer community testing for the coronavirus.<\/span>JERRY McBRIDE\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mercy Regional Medical Center is now offering widespread community testing for coronavirus, marking the second health care facility in the region to make tests widely available.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued Tuesday, Mercy officials said a test would be offered to anyone who needs one at the Emergency Department, as well as seven days a week at Durango\u2019s Centura Centers for Occupational Medicine clinic for all those who have a medical provider referral, effectively immediately.<\/p>\n

Mercy, Durango\u2019s largest health care facility, had previously been testing only patients who arrived at the hospital with severe symptoms. It appears, however, the facility was able to obtain a better supply of test kits to expand its services.<\/p>\n

Now, Mercy said it can test anyone with known symptoms of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs access to supply improves, we have progressively increased COVID-19 testing,\u201d Shauna Gulley, chief clinical officer for Centura Health, Mercy\u2019s parent company, said in a news release. \u201cWe have now expanded testing to rural communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercy did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n

According to the news release, test results should be returned within one to two days. It\u2019s unclear how much the tests cost.<\/p>\n

The local lab Cedar Diagnostics became the first facility to offer widespread testing on April 9 in three locations: Durango, Cortez and Pagosa Springs.<\/p>\n

To date, Cedar Diagnostics has tested 800 people in the region, with 16 coming back positive. Mercy has continually declined to release testing information.<\/p>\n

Local health officials have touted Southwest Colorado\u2019s ability to test patients as other parts of the country still suffer from a lack of testing kits.<\/p>\n

Liane Jollon, executive director of San Juan Basin Public Health, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. But, she said in previous interviews testing is one of the most important aspects of a virus outbreak, helping heath officials track the disease and get an understanding of how widespread it is in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cFighting any disease starts with diagnostic testing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is the most important tool we have to determine how to conduct our other efforts to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hospital secures better supply of test kits, officials say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,28,68,29,668,686],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-san-juan-basin-health-department"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64902"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}