How Public Health Conducts Covid-19 Testing, Number of Tests Run Each Day

Humboldt County, Ca. (KIEM) — Humboldt county public health is giving the community an inside look at how testing is done at their laboratory and how many tests they can process.

Public Health currently runs the covid-19 CDC PCR test approved by the FDA. They collect samples from patients in Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

Testing is done 6 days a week for anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day, depending on the number of samples that need to be processed. Typically, 2 to 4 batches of tests are run per day and each batch consists of 20 samples. Public health is approved to run 55 samples a day, if adequate re-agents and staffing are available.

Laboratory staff are patiently waiting on a new kind of test that will help them better identify the virus. For daily test results, you can head over to humboldtgov.org.