Daniella Tebib
News Editor
The Calloway County Health Department confirmed the first death of a Calloway County resident related to COVID-19 on Tuesday, April 7.
With 147 new reported cases, the total number in Kentucky has risen to 1,149, resulting in 65 deaths. The death in Calloway County was not reported before this count was announced during Gov. Andy Beshear’s daily press conference on Tuesday, April 7. The most recent announcement made regarding recoveries was on Sunday, April 5, totaling 306.
Nicholas Odell, chief medical officer at the Murray-Calloway County Hospital, said he estimates the Murray-Calloway County Hospital has tested between 110 and 120 people. Out of those tests, nine cases have been confirmed as of press time.
During the press conference, Steven Stack, public health commissioner, said the state currently does not have enough testing for those in need of it.
To help provide testing to more people, Murray Medical Associates and Murray-Calloway County Hospital are now offering expanded testing for COVID-19 after Beshear signed a contract with Gravity Diagnostics in northern Kentucky to set up 32 testing sites across the state.
Odell and Jeff Eye, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer, sat down with Matt Johnson, lead pastor of Journey Church, during a livestream on For Calloway’s Facebook page on April 7. Odell and Eye answered questions from both Johnson and those viewing the livestream about the new information on testing and the pandemic.
“We were one of the sites that were selected,” Odell said. “We’re working with hospitals in the area to help take some of that burden off of them as well. If you have patients in the hospital, you really need to know are they COVID-19 or not because that’s going to change your approach, it’s gonna change your PPE—personal protective equipment—usage rate and help you to conserve it. The sooner you can delineate if a patient in a hospital is sick with COVID-19 or not, the quicker you can make those changes and start saving PPE, and it also takes a burden off of your healthcare workers.”
Odell said the hospital received testing kits from the state on April 6 and started working with them on April 7.
“Today we started to roll those out as a soft opening at the hospital doing some expanded testing,” Odell said.
Eye said the number of testing kits the hospital receives will fluctuate depending on the number of positive cases in Murray and the entire state of Kentucky.
“For the first couple of deliveries, and we don’t know if that’s going to be everyday or every other day, they’re going to push us 50 tests,” Eye said. “From that point forward what UPS and the state is going to do is they’re going to start to load the level of testing based on the testing that is happening and the number of positives that they’re seeing. They’ll be able to flex that number up and down based on what we’re seeing across the state.”
While the hospital is receiving more resources to test more patients, testing will still be limited.
“We wish we could test everybody, surveillance blanket testing and do like what they’ve done in Germany and some other countries,” Eye said. “But right now it’s just depending on the capacity and what is the most beneficial for the community as a whole.”
Testing is available for patients experiencing the following COVID-19 symptoms: fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, congestion, runny nose and/or headache. If people are not experiencing the symptoms previously listed, the hospital is asking them to stay healthy at home.
“If you have any of these symptoms and you’re concerned that it could be coronavirus, then you should probably contact your healthcare provider,” Odell said. “You don’t necessarily have to have every single one of these… one thing we know about this virus as well as every other virus out there is there can be different presentations, some people come in with a classic cough, shortness of breath and fever, other patients come in with a not-so-classic of an appearance.”
Testing will still be limited to those who are showing symptoms and those in a tier one or tier two criteria. The criteria include healthcare workers, those who are 60 or older, those living or working in congregate care settings, those with underlying conditions, those living with a high risk population and those who have received recommendation from a professional to receive testing.
Odell and the hospital are recommending people take the following steps if they feel as if they have COVID-19. First, call a healthcare provider. The Respiratory Illness Clinic of the Murray-Calloway County Hospital can be reached at (270) 753-0704. The next step would be to schedule a telemedicine visit, clinic visit or ER visit depending on the severity of the symptoms. Following these steps, Odell recommends drive-through testing after telemedicine if necessary.
People can utilize drive-through testing by appointment only. They first have to be screened for a process and qualify for drive-through testing through a telemedicine visit.
Odell described the process of what patients might experience if they do qualify for testing.
“They take this long Q-tip, and for lack of a better term, they stick in your nose until it feels like it’s going to come out of the other side of your head,” Odell said. “Then, they do a couple of twists to get a good sample, pull it out and put it inside a tube. They label it and do all of the other back-end stuff and then ship it out.”
After tests are shipped out, Odell said they expect to receive results within 24-36 hours depending on shipping and the time the test was taken.
Because of the increased testing capabilities, Odell said people should expect to see an increase in positive cases, but they should not be alarmed.
“There are cases of coronavirus that we have not known about because of the mild nature of the symptoms or the person didn’t qualify for testing then,” Odell said.
To watch the full interview with Odell, Eye and Johnson, click here.