{"id":37006,"date":"2020-03-16T14:10:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T14:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/03\/16\/explainer-on-the-front-lines-of-developing-a-test-for-the-coronavirus\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:56:35","slug":"explainer-on-the-front-lines-of-developing-a-test-for-the-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/coronavirus\/2020\/03\/16\/explainer-on-the-front-lines-of-developing-a-test-for-the-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Explainer: On the front lines of developing a test for the coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThat escalated quickly!\u201d is a common trope used in popular culture to describe when a situation gets out of hand before you\u2019ve even had a chance to think about it. We don\u2019t often use this trope in medicine, but I can think of nothing better to describe what has been going on in the U.S. with the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a physician scientist<\/a> who practices infectious disease medicine and runs a research laboratory that specializes in viruses. I spend much of my time directing a clinical microbiology laboratory for a large academic medical center. If you\u2019ve ever had a doctor tell you that they are going to test you for a virus, it\u2019s teams like mine that develop and run that test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first heard about the coronavirus outbreak in China, I had no idea I would soon be on the front lines of dealing with this outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Colorado National Guard medical personnel prepare to perform coronavirus test on a motorist at a drive-through testing site outside the Denver Coliseum on Saturday in Denver. Officials planned to administer 150 tests but the line of vehicles wrapped around three city blocks. (David Zalubowski\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why testing is at the heart of the problem<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me start by describing exactly what this virus is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a novel virus from the coronavirus family and is spread by respiratory droplets (like when you sneeze) and contact with contaminated surfaces. The \u201ccommon cold\u201d is usually caused by rhinoviruses, but there are four coronaviruses<\/a> that also cause colds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SARS outbreak of 2003<\/a> resulted in 774 deaths and the MERS outbreak of 2012<\/a> resulted in 858 deaths; both were caused by novel coronaviruses. The ease of spread of this new virus \u2013 called SARS-CoV-2<\/a> \u2013 has led to its rapid emergence across the globe, with more than 5,000 deaths and counting<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there are drugs in development and testing phases, there are no drugs currently available<\/a> that are proven effective against severe coronavirus illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most part, public health officials don\u2019t know who in the U.S. has it<\/a> because there isn\u2019t a method to test most of the population for it. If you don\u2019t know who has a disease, it\u2019s impossible to predict its spread, how many people will get it, or how many people may die from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing in the U.S. must be expanded, which a number of companies are working on<\/a>, to reveal the scope of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Medical staffers take samples from a young boy to test for the novel coronavirus called COVID-19 at the Bulovka hospital in Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday. The Czech Republic’s government has approved further dramatic measures early Saturday to try and stem the spread of the coronavirus. The government has ordered retail businesses including shopping malls to close as of Saturday morning. (Petr David Josek\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How the US lagged behind<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed a rapid test for SARS-CoV-2. This test is designed to amplify and detect the genetic material in the virus \u2013 its RNA (ribonucleic acid) \u2013 from your body. It targets certain conserved RNA sequences in the virus that are different from those found in other coronaviruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that for a population of 331 million, a single testing center wasn\u2019t nearly enough. The CDC enabled state public health labs to use their test<\/a>, but this still hasn\u2019t been enough to meet population needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The testing deficiency leaves much of the U.S. population out in the cold<\/a>. It\u2019s now up to companies, hospitals and academic centers to pick up the slack<\/a>. Part of the delay was due to what happened during the Zika virus outbreak of 2015, when laboratories that developed their own tests<\/a> were halted by the FDA because they did not have approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing development really picked up Feb. 29 after the FDA relented and released guidance for developing tests in individual laboratories<\/a>, and a free-for-all ensued. We laboratory directors were on the spot to develop tests, and most were unprepared to say the least. Test development typically takes months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labs use what is called a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, or RT-PCR, to test a sample taken with a swab from the back of someone\u2019s throat and\/or nose<\/a>. The tests work by converting the virus\u2019 RNA to DNA and then replicating it millions of times in order to amplify its presence and then detect its genetic sequence. If it is detected, a patient is infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with the FDA guidance, we had to decide what RNA sequences in the virus to target and how quickly we could get reliable testing materials. We could only obtain materials for RNA amplification and detection from the CDC or private industry, who were all being bombarded with our requests simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We laboratory directors were suddenly competing with one another for limited resources to develop these tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A nurse works in the room of Chuck Sedlacek \u2014 who has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus \u2014 on Friday, as seen through the window of his room at Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle. (Ted S. Warren\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What went wrong?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you compare our ability to ramp up testing to that observed in China<\/a> and South Korea<\/a>, the U.S. response was not up to par. Both countries allowed companies to develop and distribute tests from an early stage, permitting large portions of their populations to be tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem in the U.S. is the lack of centralized facilities across the country that all have the same equipment to run complex tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just in the state of California alone where I live, there are hundreds of hospitals, most with significant differences in their equipment and testing capabilities. When the CDC made their test available, my first thought was, \u201cWe don\u2019t even have the equipment to run this test.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most hospitals in my state and across the country faced this exact same dilemma<\/a>: a lack of proper equipment and difficulty obtaining adequate testing materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, problems with CDC-manufactured testing kits<\/a> arose immediately and caused testing failures when they first released them in February. These failure stories motivated many of us to either develop tests based on our own analysis of COVID-19, or to partner with industry in the development of their tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my institution, we\u2019ve been working with industry partners and accelerating the development of their tests for our patient populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nurses at a drive-up coronavirus testing station set up by the University of Washington Medical Center sanitize their hands after taking a nose swab sample from a person in a car on Friday in Seattle. UW Medicine is conducting drive-thru testing in a hospital parking garage and has screened hundreds of staff members, faculty and trainees for COVID-19. U.S. hospitals are setting up triage tents, calling doctors out of retirement, guarding their supplies of face masks and making plans to cancel elective surgery as they brace for an expected onslaught of coronavirus patients. (Ted S. Warren\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why it\u2019s not the end of the world<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of negatives to find in the response to the coronavirus outbreak, but the flaws in the response represent learning opportunities. Highly infectious viruses in a connected world won\u2019t stay contained for long. Our assumption should have been that it would make it to the U.S. from the onset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next time there\u2019s an outbreak, we laboratory directors won\u2019t be waiting for the government to give us the green light to develop diagnostic tests. We\u2019ll do it on our own and press the FDA to allow us to use it. The hard work to ramp up testing in the U.S. is the most significant effort in which I have ever taken part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you could see the efforts of companies, academic centers, and hospitals right now in the U.S., you\u2019d walk away with optimism that we\u2019re up to the task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. <\/i>David Pride<\/i><\/a> is a pathologist who researches infectious diseases. The <\/i>director<\/i><\/a> of the Molecular Microbiology laboratory and the associate director of the Clinical Microbiology laboratory at <\/i>UC San Diego Health<\/i><\/a>, he\u2019s also an assistant professor at the UCSD School of Medicine.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\t