While coronavirus testing is more widely available in Oklahoma now than in the early stages of the pandemic, potential issues are starting to pop up.
Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Deborah Gist said her main concern is a backlog in processing that’s making people wait as many as two weeks for results.
“In trying to get back to school, if we don’t resolve that problem by then, then we have this ongoing issue around having enough people to function in our school district, whether it’s bus drivers or custodians or teacher assistants or clerks or teachers or school leaders,” Gist said.
Testing issues may also be problematic for Oklahoma businesses that are trying to bring employees back to work — or who could never send them home to begin with. Sand Springs–based steel tubing manufacturer Webco Industries is having employees who develop COVID-19 symptoms or are exposed to someone who’s infected get a negative test result before they return.
Webco Corporate Health and Safety Manager Chris Pendergrass said the problem is the most accurate molecular test is taking up to 10 days to be processed, while rapid antigen tests with high false negative rates are turned around in 48 hours.
“So, we allow this employee to come back not knowing that, that was not a molecular test, because the antigen test showed that he was negative. He came back to work, and then his molecular test came back and said he was positive,” Pendergrass said.
The state health department is asking people with positive antigen tests to get a molecular test as confirmation.
Pendergrass said a thorough COVID response plan has kept Webco from having outbreaks at its plants.
