Coronavirus in Missouri and Kansas: Where and how to get tested, and what’s changing
In Kansas and Missouri, as throughout the United States, phones at doctors’ offices and county health departments are ringing constantly, with worried people asking the same question:
How and where do I get tested for coronavirus?
The answer currently is to go to your health care provider, meaning a doctor’s office or urgent care center — but only if you show symptoms and, as of now, know you have been exposed to someone confirmed to have had the virus. And you have to call in advance.
Where, how and when people can get tested is sure to change, as the U.S. and county health departments become better able to deal with the spreading pandemic and more tests become available. Local health officials said as much on Monday, promising that as the number of tests increases, the criteria for who is eligible may loosen.
At this point, county health departments aren’t doing any testing.
“We don’t have any drive-thru sites yet, or any kind of sites where you can just go,” said Barbara Mitchell, community health division director and spokeswoman for the Johnson County Department of Health.
Health officials request that the general public refrain from going to hospital emergency rooms unless they are experiencing a true emergency.
How to get tested?
▪ If you are experiencing symptoms — fever, dry cough, and/or difficulty breathing — call your doctor’s office or local urgent care center to tell them you are thinking of coming in, so they can prepare and protect staff.
▪ Staff, over the phone, will try to determine if they believe it is necessary for you to come in.
▪If you do go, your health care provider will take a nasal or mouth swab, put it in culture and send it to a lab.
▪ Tests are currently being processed by state health departments, which do not charge for the test but require strict criteria for symptoms and exposure.
▪ In the Kansas City area, three national private commercial labs — Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp and Lee’s Summit-based Viracor Eurofins — are now also processing tests. You cannot go there directly. Ask your doctor’s office if they use one of these labs and what criteria they use to decide who gets tested. Quest Diagnostics said it expects to be able to perform as many as 10,000 tests per day be week’s end and 20,000 by the start of April.
▪ There is no fee for the tests done by a state health departments, but patients will need to pay the cost of their doctor’s or urgent care visit. The commercial labs do charge for the test, although the amount varies. Bloomberg News recently reported that the Quest and LabCorp tests could cost $50 to $100, although some have said it could be as much as $200. Insurance could cover some of that.
▪ The results can take up to four days to be come back, depending on backlog. Viracor said it offers same-day results. A Quest spokesman said tests results come back within four days. Missouri state officials said their tests can come back within hours.
Who should get tested?
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers the following recommendations:
▪ Stay home, but also call your doctor if you develop symptoms and have either been in close contact with a person known to have COVID-19 or have recently traveled from an area where the virus is widespread.
▪ Older patients and those with severe underlying medical conditions or compromised immune systems should contact their health care provider early, even if their symptoms are mild.
▪ Contact a physician, emergency room or seek care immediately if you have severe symptoms, such as persistent pain or pressure in the chest, new confusion or inability to rouse, or bluish lips or face.
Donna Magee, 76, of Prairie Village is concerned that she may have coronavirus but because of the state’s strict criteria, no one will test her.
“I’m 100 percent sure I have it,” Magee said, coughing over the phone, adding that she has quarantined herself. “I’m not a crackpot. I’m a college-educated woman. I have a fever. I have flu-like symptoms. I’m extremely weak. I have headaches. I have been in bed for the last few days.”
On Friday she wore a mask to her appointment at the University of Kansas Hospital. But the doctor chose not to test her because she had not recently traveled abroad, or, to the best of her knowledge, been in close contact with anyone with a confirmed case.
“The nurse practitioner said that, sorry, I did not make the criteria for being tested,” Magee said. “She said that if it was up to her, she would test me, but it was out of her hands.
“I feel like my government and the health system has let me down tremendously. They sent me home and told me to self-quarantine and there was nothing they can do.”
On the Missouri side, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Kansas City) said that Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center in Kansas City only has 10 test kits for the virus, a claim confirmed by a hospital spokeswoman. He said that the Lafayette County Health Department only has two test kits, while Ray County Health Department only has one.
“Where are the tests? That’s all I know is that they’re not here. When I voted I didn’t vote that maybe I’d get some in the next 10 days,” Cleaver said, pointing to the more than $8 billion emergency coronavirus bill Congress passed earlier this month.
“I voted because I and other members on the other side of the aisle believed they were going to get here as soon as possible.”
Loosening testing criteria
Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said that the state lab currently has kits to test about 1,200 patients. Because of the strict testing criteria, they are far from overwhelmed.
“We could do 100 each day with the current equipment we have,” Cox said. So far the most they have done in a single day, she said, is 43 tests.
At a Monday news conference, Missouri state officials said the state health department had conducted 170 tests, with six positives. Numbers from the private labs were not provided.
Over the weekend, Randall Williams, Missouri’s director of health and senior services, noted the problem.
“Let’s say you’re a perfectly healthy person who hasn’t traveled anywhere and there’s no known exposure,” he said, “but you have a cough and a fever, you wouldn’t meet the (current) criteria. In two weeks, we’ll expand those criteria. If you just have a cough and fever, we’ll test you.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said the change will vastly improve testing.
“I think we will be in a category that we can do thousands upon thousands of tests in a day,” Parson said.
With private labs coming online, Williams said he thinks Missouri could conduct about 6,000 tests per week.
“We hope by April 1 to shift our capability to have the tests to test all Missourians who have fever of 100.4 and a cough, and we will move that out to local testing sites,” Williams said.
Right now, Missouri has enough tests for those people who meet the current, stricter criteria.
“We have to save our tests for the next few weeks for those who are most critically ill for the state lab,” Williams said. “I have to remind you that for the most stringent criteria — and these are people who a provider would tell you ‘I’m almost positive this patient is COVID-19’ — only six out of 170 are positive.”
On Monday, officials with the University of Kansas Health System announced it would now be doing testing locally as opposed to sending samples to the state health department in Topeka.
At the press conference, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said the U.S. should use South Korea as “a role model we ought to be looking at.
“I think the numbers are 1 out of every 280 people in Korea have been tested,” Moran said. “The message there was that the concentration of people is such that it’s more compatible with more tests, but the tests were available, and Korea responded in a way that got people tested quickly.”
Steve Stites, the chief medical officer for the health system, said the limited number of tests in the U.S. makes “social distancing” all the more important.
“When you don’t have the information, you just stay at home as if you’re quarantining yourself to stay safe,” Stites said. “That can blunt the (infection) curve. South Korea didn’t really restrict movement because they had a lot of tests. We have to restrict movement. And people have to help us do that.”
The Star’s Bryan Lowry contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 5:46 PM.
