Coronavirus Watch: What makes COVID testing so complex
When you get a COVID-19 test, do you know what the actual process is in order to get a result?
As countless Americans have learned in the pandemic, there's a complex network of pipelines in medical testing between samples and results. In America's highly privatized and fragmented health care industry, every doctor’s office, hospital and laboratory must build pipelines of its own — which then change as new technology emerges.
It's Monday, and this is Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's more news to know:
- Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms, the agency announced Saturday.
- Pfizer executives announced the company will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its vaccine once the federal government no longer buys its shots.
- In Africa, administered COVID-19 vaccine doses have dropped by more than 50% over the last three months, according to the World Health Organization.
See our COVID-19 resource guide here. On boosters: 35.4% of Americans over 5 years old have received their first booster shot, and 11.5 million people have received a second booster dose, according to the CDC.
– Cady Stanton, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @cady_stanton
Contributing: The Associated Press