Federal testing at Ellis Davis and the walk ups is now taking 8-10 days to return results. This is not useful. In fact @Parkland @DCHHS @DallasOEM and I believe it is harmful as many people aren’t isolating during that period. Further, it’s next to impossible to trace a person...

Who contracted the virus that long ago. In the north and for anyone with insurance, the turnaround is about 2 days. In the south,it’s 8-10. I spoke to the city and commissioners and we cannot abide by this. Our federal partners have offered to extend their testing after tomorrow.

We will decline this offer and do the job ourselves so turnaround times can improve to within 1-3 days. Hopefully, our federal partners will get us some reagents they’ll no longer be using since they won’t be running our tests. @Parkland and @UTSWNews could do 2940 a day....

With two day turnaround on results if we only had the reagents.

Our plan is to take over laboratory responsibility using a private vendor Wednesday, 7/15. This will speed results to equal to what private insurance are experiencing. For the first few days, @Parkland will only be able to do 500 per day at Ellis Davis.

. @DallasOEM and i have asked @Parkland to prepare to go to 1k per day at #EllisDavis ASAP once new process is in place.