{"id":89820,"date":"2020-03-20T16:31:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/telluride-couple-paying-for-their-entire-countys-coronavirus-tests\/"},"modified":"2020-03-20T16:31:44","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:31:44","slug":"telluride-couple-paying-for-their-entire-countys-coronavirus-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/telluride-couple-paying-for-their-entire-countys-coronavirus-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Telluride couple paying for their entire county\u2019s coronavirus tests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Skier
Skier Nick Kenworthy skis through powder at Telluride Ski Resort. A family in San Miguel County, where Telluride is located, is paying to test the entire county for coronavirus.<\/span>Brett Schreckengost\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

San Miguel County in Southwest Colorado had only one confirmed case of the new coronavirus as of Thursday night. But already it has sent a handful of people with severe respiratory ailments to hospitals, where they\u2019re receiving critical care for suspected infections.<\/p>\n

In response and as a precaution, the county has taken some of the state\u2019s most drastic measures to try to limit the spread of the disease. On Wednesday, the San Miguel County Public Health Department ordered its roughly 8,000 residents to shelter in place until at least April 3.<\/p>\n

The problem is the county, which includes the ritzy resort town of Telluride, has had little to no testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Final results from the screening that has been done on just 38 people aren\u2019t yet available, so health officials are essentially flying blind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are presuming we have disease,\u201d county spokesman Susan Lilly said. \u201cWe just don\u2019t know how widespread it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But two part-time Telluride residents have stepped in to try to solve the testing problem. They\u2019re paying for everyone in the town of about 2,500 \u2013 whether they are symptomatic or not \u2013 and county to be screened twice in the coming two weeks for coronavirus using a new blood test that\u2019s received preliminary OK from the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

The test was created by their own company, a subsidiary of United Biomedical Inc., and about 15,000 kits will be provided \u2013 representing about double San Miguel County\u2019s population. Testing will be done in the town first and then expanded into the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cData is power,\u201d said Mei Mei Hu, who along with her husband, Lou Reese, is making the testing possible.<\/p>\n

They spoke to The Colorado Sun<\/em> on Thursday morning as they prepared their plane to ship an initial phase of samples \u2013 taken from emergency first responders and their family members \u2013 to a lab in California to be tested. Results are expected back in a few days \u2013 and then once everyone in the town and county is tested a first time, they will be tested again.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hope that the data collected can be used far beyond San Miguel County and the one-road-in-one-road-out box canyon that holds Telluride. Hu and Reese believe their endeavor will mark the first time everyone in a U.S. county is tested for the virus. (Participation is voluntary.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be one of the first times where we screen a whole population,\u201d Hu said. \u201cWhat you do by testing en masse is you say, \u2018What is active outbreak prevalence?\u2019 If you\u2019re positive on antibodies, that means you\u2019ve been exposed to it at some time. If you test again in 14 days and you see that everyone is in the same state, it means that you didn\u2019t have any new infections and you can then begin releasing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most significantly: The testing may be able to show how many people in Telluride and San Miguel County are infected with coronavirus but aren\u2019t aware of it. In most cases, the disease results in only mild symptoms. Some people show no symptoms at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the event that there\u2019s a lot, then I think it really informs the public,\u201d Reese said.<\/p>\n

Hu and Reese point to a similar mass testing completed in a town that was at the center of Italy\u2019s outbreak. The experiment in Vo allowed authorities in the town near Venice to completely stop the spread of the illness by taking targeted social-distancing measures and ensuring infected people were isolated.<\/p>\n

If they are successful in Telluride, they may be able to replicate their model across the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"A
A family in San Miguel County, where Telluride is located, is paying to test the entire county for coronavirus.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis has likened the coronavirus to a \u201cghost\u201d because it\u2019s so difficult to track. Once testing is completed, the disease has already had several days to infect more people. Without testing, he\u2019s said, trying to manage the outbreak is incredibly difficult. But Colorado\u2019s ability to test people for the virus has been limited to just a few hundred people each day.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has not endorsed the testing initiative in Southwest Colorado. The San Miguel County screening is done using blood, while the testing the state uses collects samples using nasal and throat swabs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently evaluating the science and efficacy behind these types of tests to see if they will meet the public health need,\u201d said Scott Bookman, head of Colorado\u2019s public health lab and the state\u2019s incident commander for the coronavirus outbreak. \u201cWe have not been able to determine whether that is a route the state will support at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bookman said San Miguel County public health officials and leaders made the decision to pursue the testing through Hu and Reese on their own and they \u201ccertainly have the ability to make their own decisions.\u201d He acknowledged that the testing need in Colorado has far outpaced the availability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to expanding testing across the state to the best of our ability,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just need to identify what we believe is the best way to do it, and we have not made a decision at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ralen
Ralen Johnson is testing samples for COVID-19 at Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Laboratory Services Division in Denver on March 14.<\/span>Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post photo pool<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Leaders in San Miguel County are so appreciative of the initiative, they became emotional. \u201cWhen we reported this in our county meeting \u2026 the entire team cried,\u201d Sharon Grundy, public health medical officer for San Miguel County, said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Grundy said the current testing situation in Colorado is \u201cout of our control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic health partnering with a private company gives us more control to get better optics into COVID-19 and help mitigate our losses, including what some are saying could be an incomprehensible amount of loss of life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hu and Reese declined to say how much the testing will cost them. They say it\u2019s irrelevant and the focus is on helping their neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to do,\u201d Hu said. \u201cWe can do it. \u2026 When you\u2019re in a small community, you try to do everything you can to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reese said he\u2019s hopeful a great deal can be gleaned from the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelluride has been famous for a lot of years for innovation, whether it\u2019s clean energy or whether it\u2019s trying to lead the way in a pandemic,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this is a model that will be rolled out in the rest of the country for best practice in how to monitor and contain the pandemic. At the end of the day, you\u2019re just trying to mitigate suffering.\u201d<\/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

San Miguel County, Telluride face shelter-in-place order<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

that data can be used far beyond the box canyon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,685,28,668,97],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-89820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-public-health","tag-telluride"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89820","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=89820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89820"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=89820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}