ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County Executive Sam Page held a briefing Tuesday afternoon to discuss COVID-19 testing supply, expanding the access of testing and reporting time for test administrators.
“First, we're going to focus on getting test results to people as soon as possible. People shouldn't be waiting to get their test results. What are people supposed to do when they wait? What about their jobs? What about their families? It's just unacceptable,” Page said.
For the county public health sites, there have been three new staff members added to handle patient notifications. Page said if you get a COVID-19 test taken at one of the county’s testing locations, you will get your results in 24 to 48 hours.
“The private testing providers do most of the tests for patients. We will continue to work with the private labs to get their testing results to patients as soon as possible,” Page said.
The county said it is also expecting to get another 30,000 saliva tests.
“While we're ensuring that tests are available in St. Louis County, we have to make sure that they're available to everyone,” Page added. He said the county has started to do more pop-up testing throughout the community. “We are also investing heavily in adding more community locations in high need areas. This week we published a request for proposal from the community to seek new testing partners for testing sites.”
Page said the county is also focusing on timely reporting of COVID-19 data. This comes after COVID-19 numbers on the county’s website were incomplete on Tuesday.
“Data reporting may seem insignificant, but it is critical to responding to this pandemic. We rely on receiving timely and accurate data from test providers in crafting all of our policies and making our decisions. We use it in contact tracing in case investigation. We also use it to tap track trends to understand how the virus is moving about in the community.”
He said on Tuesday the county had to pull back from sharing all of its data because one provider submitted more than 17,000 test results in two batches over three days.
“This raised a concern about duplication and other problems with the data to make sure we've got the right data on hand and that we're showing the public only accurate data. We've put in new processes to screen for accuracy and quality and the reports we get from private providers,” Page said.
He added the county will be taking action against the provider who delivered those test results in “one data dump.”
“We are going to work with them so they can start complying with our rapid notification order and get the test to us reliably and promptly,” Page said.
St. Louis County reported 88 new cases Tuesday, but a message on the county website said that number reflects incomplete data.
"St. Louis County’s COVID-19 website, stlcorona.com, lists the number of new cases reported each day. Unfortunately, today’s reported figure of 88 new cases reflects incomplete data. The St. Louis County Department of Public Health has identified errors in timeliness and accuracy of the data it received from private urgent care companies that administer tests in the county. As an example, one urgent care company recently reported 17,700 test results in two batches over a three-day period, raising concerns about possible duplications and other problems with the data. DPH is reviewing those test results and will post them after it confirms the accuracy of the data reported. Until then, DPH will not include that data in reports.
"The department will update the data on stlcorona.com as soon as it has confirmed the accuracy of the data and correcting errors. We will continue to use seven-day averages for monitoring trends."
