{"id":64910,"date":"2020-04-29T23:27:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T23:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-hopes-to-test-anyone-with-coronavirus-symptoms-by-may-15\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:27:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:27:05","slug":"colorado-hopes-to-test-anyone-with-coronavirus-symptoms-by-may-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-hopes-to-test-anyone-with-coronavirus-symptoms-by-may-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado hopes to test anyone with coronavirus symptoms by May 15"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Diane
Diane Scanzaroli, a physician assistant at Ardas Family Medicine in Aurora, tests a patient for the new coronavirus in the parking lot of the clinic April 15.<\/span>Moe Clark\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday unveiled a plan to scale up coronavirus testing in Colorado, saying the state\u2019s goal is to provide screening to all symptomatic people who want it by May 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still working to get that infrastructure in place,\u201d Polis said at a news conference at the state Capitol. \u201cWe\u2019re building this car as we\u2019re driving. It\u2019s a labor-intensive effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis said Colorado is expecting shipments in the coming weeks from the federal government and private businesses of swabs and testing reagents that will dramatically increase the state\u2019s ability to screen people for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

The state currently has the capacity \u2013 between its public health lab and private health care providers \u2013 to process up to 10,000 tests a day. But because of supply constraints only a fraction of that amount are actually being done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe test is complicated. Supplies are limited. That\u2019s why this has been such a challenge for Colorado and for America to get where we need to be on testing,\u201d the governor said. \u201cI\u2019m proud to tell you that I\u2019m optimistic that we\u2019re getting where we need to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hope is that the broader testing will allow the state to identify outbreaks early on and stop them from worsening as restrictions are loosened on Coloradans\u2019 movement starting this week. The state lab is now able to turn around results in as little as 24 hours, down from a maximum of five days.<\/p>\n

Polis said the goal is to have the capacity to test a minimum of 5,000 people a day by the middle of May. But he hopes the state is able to do even more \u2013 8,500 tests a day \u2013 by the month\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Right now, Colorado is processing between 2,000 and 3,000 tests a day between the state\u2019s lab and private partners. That\u2019s up from just 160 a day when coronavirus was first confirmed in the state in early March.<\/p>\n

The plan is to eventually have a testing site in each of Colorado\u2019s 64 counties in partnership with local public health officials. Colorado\u2019s state lab has already sent supplies to support dozens of community testing sites.<\/p>\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis holds a coronavirus test kit as he speaks to reporters Wednesday at the Colorado Capitol.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Polis said the state will help with staffing if necessary.<\/p>\n

The state launched one such site in Weld County in the past week. Out of 882 people tested, 124 tested positive. Of those who tested positive, 34 were asymptomatic.<\/p>\n

To bolster testing, the state is also partnering with private sector hospitals and health care provides, like National Jewish Health, Denver Health and Kaiser Permanente.<\/p>\n

Finally, Colorado is also finding business partners to help, including Kroger \u2013 the owner of King Sooper\u2019s \u2013 which offered two days of testing this week at the Auraria Campus in Denver.<\/p>\n

Polis said the state is working to scale up its epidemiological team to partner infection tracing with the new testing capacity. Colorado has nearly doubled its epidemiological team to 56 people in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just about the testing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s then about how do you follow up, make sure anybody who tests positive is isolating (and), not only that, make sure that those who have come into contact with them are notified.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were 777 coronavirus deaths and 15,284 confirmed cases of the disease in Colorado through Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

has already sent supplies to support 42 community testing sites<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,685,819,28,29,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64910","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=64910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88865,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64910\/revisions\/88865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64910"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}