MANATEE COUNTY – County officials and the Manatee County Health Department are trying to address a critical shortage of (COVID-19) specimen collection kits.
On Tuesday, Manatee County Commissioners authorized County Administrator Cheri Coryea to spend up to $100,000 to purchase up to 1,200 COVID-19 test kits and the personal protective equipment needed to administer those tests.
Using $100,000 of the county’s $6.5 million emergency disaster fund, Manatee County is now trying to directly purchase coronavirus test kits without going through the state government.
Public Safety Director Jake Saur said the county had already submitted a request to the state for 600 testing kits, in addition to the 1,200 test kits Coryea is now authorized to purchase.
While Tuesday’s meeting was in progress, Commissioner Carol Whitmore reached out to Florida Sen. Bill Galvano.
“I texted Bill Galvano while we were sitting here and told him that we can’t get testing kits. He told me he was on it. He called with the EOC Director (Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz) on conference call and asked what we were missing. I told him we needed collection kits. He said the collection kits are on their way,” Whitmore said while participating in the virtual meeting from her home.
Commission Chair Betsy Benac said she recently emailed Galvano as well.
“Great job Carol. That’s great news,” Commissioner Misty Servia said.
Later in the meeting it was learned that 300 test kits would be coming from the state that day and they would likely be used for a second round of drive-thru testing at the Bradenton Area Convention Center in Palmetto.
“Our goal today is to get to the state level of 1% tested over the next seven days. Another 1,200 tests will get us to that goal and continue to raise that percentage locally,” Coryea said.
Benac said she was concerned that Manatee County has the fourth-highest mortality rate in Florida.
“We know local numbers are going to keep going up. People have got to respect the fact that we cannot be together. We cannot congregate yet. The advice is clear. We need to do more testing,” she said.
Saur said COVID-19 cases and deaths are flattening statewide but still trending upward in Manatee County.
“The state of Florida currently has 823 fatalities and of those, 33 have been within Manatee County. This compares to 686 for all of Florida and 20 for Manatee on Friday afternoon, which results in an increase of fatalities of 65% for Manatee County since Friday,” Saur said.
Saur said Manatee County had 312 positive reported COVID-19 cases on Friday afternoon and 431 positive cases as of Monday evening, which he noted was a 38% percent increase during that short span.
Mixed messaging
Servia asked Saur about the messaging coming from the federal government.
“I watch the President’s press conference every single night and last night I heard Vice President Pence say we have enough tests, the state governors have plenty of tests and we can begin phase one reopening the country. I’m confused. Why are we hearing that message? I talked to Kevin DiLallo this morning, from Manatee Memorial Hospital. I said do you have enough tests? He said absolutely not, we are so short on tests. He said the labs are also very short on tests. They cannot properly test people, including the frontline people. I’m just trying to understand why there are two different messages,” Servia said.
In response, Saur said, “We placed an order today for 600 testing kits within the state, but the overall message from the state Emergency Management Office is there’s no tests. I can’t speak for the federal government at all. I can only speak for our dealings within the state government, and no, we are not getting ample tests.”
Testing shortages
Saur said about 1% of Florida’s population has been tested and approximately one-sixth of 1% (.006%) of Manatee County’s population has been tested.
During Friday’s emergency county commission meeting, Saur was asked about reaching a 10% testing threshold in Manatee County.
“I can tell you 10% for our county would be about 46,000 tests. That is not going to be possible prior to beginning to open up and getting back to work,” Saur said.
Servia asked Saur why Manatee County has had so many fewer tests than Sarasota County.
“We know the state of Florida has run out of tests. Since we last saw our 200 tests we used for our drive-thru (testing) the State of Florida has sent us more tests. However, we were told we could not use them and all of the information on all those tests were in Chinese,” Saur said.
Saur said the tests marked with Chinese language were not FDA-approved.
On Friday, Saur said MCR Health in Manatee County has purchased its own tests and is providing COVID-19 testing for those who meet the testing criteria. He said those with a prescription from their personal health care provider and those without a prescription can be tested at an MCR Health facility.
“MCR has plenty of tests,” Saur said.
On Tuesday, Coryea said it costs $107 to get tested at a local MCR Health facility and part of that amount covers the lab fees. She said there is a co-pay for those with health insurance and a sliding cost scale for those without insurance. It was also noted that it costs between $50-$60 to purchase each test.
Saur said tests conducted with test kits received from the state must be done at no cost to the person being tested – including those conducted at the county’s drive-through testing facility.
Dr. Jennifer Bencie, of the Manatee County Health Department, said the health department returned to the state the 150 unusable test kits marked with Chinese language.
