SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — South Dakota’s top health officials say they are working to increase testing as concerns about the coronavirus grow.
Dr. Allison Suttle, chief medical officer at Sanford Health, said Sanford and Avera are “ramping it up to an adequate level of testing” in an effort to learn more about the virus’ spread.
Officials acknowledge increased testing still faces roadblocks.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get to a place where every single person who wants to be tested will be tested,” Gov. Kristi Noem said.
Noem implied that a delay in processing tests was slowing things down.
“There probably will be more testing that will happen as we gear up to process those,” Noem said. “You can do a lot of testing, but if you can’t process the tests that certainly doesn’t do us any good.”
Officials did not provide a specific timeline for when testing will be increased. David Erickson, chief medical officer at Avera Health, said he hopes it will be “in the very near future; in the next few days.”
The United States lags behind many other affected countries when it comes to coronavirus testing. South Korea, for example, has already conducted hundreds of thousands of tests in its effort to contain the virus.
(KELO.com News Director Todd Epp contributed to this report.)
