Officials from the Oklahoma State Department of Health say they’re asking all medical providers and laboratories across the state to send positive COVID-19 samples to the public health lab in Stillwater for variant sequencing.
“There’s a big notification going out today that says, ‘If you have a positive specimen, please send it to us because we want to be as robust as possible,’” said state epidemiologist Jolianne Stone.
In a press briefing last week, Dr. Mary Clarke, president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association, said Oklahoma has only sequenced 0.18% of positive tests at the state level, putting it at 50th in the nation for variant sequencing.
The Centers for Disease Control says data on variants is important for understanding the pandemic and even the continuedeffectiveness of the vaccines.
Public officials are also currently warning that a surge in variants will cause regional outbreaks of COVID-19.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said the Delta variant “can cause more people to die in areas where people have not been vaccinated.”
According to OSDH officials, one reason for lack of sequencing data in Oklahoma is because as the public health lab was moving from Oklahoma City to Stillwater during the pandemic, COVID-19 tests were being outsourced to the CDC.
Stone said not many tests were sent to CDC because there are strict criteria that have to be met for a sample to be sequenced there.
According to the Association of Public Health Laboratories, specimens that are strongly positive and less than seven days old are preferred by the CDC.
There has been confusion in the past about what is being sent to CDC.
Officials said there’s also been some mixed messaging with providers across the state. Stone said the CDC criteria confused the issue with laboratories, but the purpose of today’s message is to clear things up.
“Some of that is reframing our laboratories' state of mind, saying, ‘We understand it may not meet this criteria, however, we’re learning a lot more, and we still want to receive them,’” said Stone.
Commissioner Lance Frye agreed that messaging to providers and labs should be improved.
“There is some reframing needed in the messages,” said Frye. He also pointed to a lower case count as a reason for the lag in data.
All OSDH officials urged vaccination, citing data that vaccines are effective and appear to lessen the severity of disease even in the case of a breakthrough infection.