‘Up until two weeks ago, it was working’

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Montana, surveillance testing designed to serve as an early warning system to prevent large outbreaks and keep businesses open is increasingly becoming ineffective, public health officials told Montana Free Press.

From Libby to Butte to Great Falls to Gardiner, tests of asymptomatic individuals are taking up to two weeks to produce results. That lag time can eliminate the strategic effectiveness of the testing, which is aimed at vulnerable populations like nursing home residents and front-line workers who are likely to be exposed to the virus. By the time the test results come in, many individuals would have cleared a quarantine period anyway, health officials said.

“Up until two weeks ago, it was working,” said Jennifer McCully, public health manager in Lincoln County. “It makes contact tracing kind of impossible and not meaningful because it’s so far gone that once we find out someone is actually positive, it’s too late.”