IOWA, USA — Gov. Kim Reynolds announced additional tests are being sent to two hotspots in eastern Iowa: the most recent long-term care facility outbreak in Muscatine County and to the Tyson Food processing plant in Louisa County.
The Iowa Department of Public Health sent testing supplies to the Wilton Retirement Community in Muscatine County Wednesday. It's the seventh long-term care facility in Iowa with an outbreak.
The additional tests will be for other residents.
900 more tests were sent to the Tyson Food processing plant in Columbus Junction in Louisa County. The IDPH has sent 1,100 total tests to the plant since last week.
A new testing system will be used on the workers there.
"We're gonna surveillance test and do testing on people that might not be showing symptoms," Sarah Reisetter with the IDPH said.
"The reason that we haven't done widespread surveillance testing in our state to date is because we just haven't had the testing supplies available to do that," Reisetter said.
When asked about widespread testing, Reynolds said that the state is hoping to do more and more testing. She said the matter should "hopefully" be discussed at Thursday's press conference.
She did say that contact tracing, i.e. looking at where an infected individual went and who they were in contact with, goes a "really long way" to find out who else needs to be tested. For now, testing will be provided to those deemed most at risk like long-term care facilities.
As of Wednesday, the State Hygienic Lab has 3,048 tests available. In addition to that, near-patient testing machines from Abbott are being sent to several rural locations in Iowa.
These areas have labs with a CLIA certificate of waiver that can handle infectious disease testing materials safely.
The following locations are where these machines are being sent:
- Veterans Memorial - Waukon
- Montgomery County Memorial Hospital - Red Oak
- Washington County Hospital - Washington
- Spencer Memorial Hospital - Spencer
- Iowa Veterans Home - Marshalltown
- Community Health Centers of Southeastern Iowa - Columbus City
- Ringgold County Hospital - Mt. Ayr
- Kossuth Regional Health Center - Algona
- Buena Vista Regional Medical Center - Storm Lake
- Regional Medical Center - Manchester
- Clarke County Hospital - Osceola
- Boone County Hospital - Boone
- Buchanan County Hospital - Independence
Iowa was promised 15 machines, but this list is only 13. Reynolds' communications director Pat Garrett said this could be two things: either facilities are still waiting for them to arrive or are still looking to deploy them.
These machines are easily portable and can pick up and moved when needed.
The fact that these areas rural is exactly why the IDPH directed the machines to those spots.
The IDPH considered the population of the elderly, number of long-term care facilities in the area, hospital capacity and whether the location could serve as a hub to several rural communities for testing resources.
Garrett said that since these machines have a limited testing capability, it made more sense to send them those areas.