Covid-19 testing delays create a public health nightmare as schools and workplaces try to reopen

Adriana Cardenas, a medical technologist processes test samples for the coronavirus at the AdventHealth Tampa labs on June 25, 2020 in Tampa, Florida.
Octavio Jones | Getty Images
Across much of the U.S., concerned citizens are lining up to get tested for the coronavirus, only to wait a week or longer for their results to arrive.
With the country mired in its worst pandemic in a century, health experts are apoplectic about the length of the testing delays. In addition to the anxiety it causes patients, the lag time is disastrous for public health, because infected people aren’t being quarantined in a timely fashion and it’s impossible to retrace their steps to find others who have been exposed.
The inability for the U.S. to establish an efficient testing system, five months into the crisis, is one reason why numerous states continue to …continued .
[Source: CNBC News]