Dallas has two drive-through coronavirus test sites. Why doesn’t Fort Worth have any?
While Dallas County has two drive-through coronavirus testing sites, Tarrant County does not have a similar system for widespread public testing.
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley pushed back on any notion that Tarrant County had not advocated strongly enough to acquire one of the two DFW test sites, saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ultimately made the decision. Instead it’s a matter of allocating resources where they are most needed, he said.
Dallas County has seen nearly twice as many coronavirus cases as Tarrant County, but with two drive-through test sites, health officials there are able to test more people. At least one Fort Worth councilman said the lack of testing on the western side of the Metroplex has put Tarrant County behind the curve in understanding the local outbreak.
At one point, a test site was being planned for Grand Prairie, on the west side of Dallas County and closer to Fort Worth residents, but a site was opened instead in South Dallas.
As of Friday afternoon, Dallas County had 921 cases of the novel coronavirus and 17 deaths. That’s more than twice as many cases as Tarrant County, which had 383 confirmed coronavirus patients and seven who have died.
During media briefings, Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja has not been able to say how many total tests have been done in Tarrant County because private labs only report positive results. According to data on the county’s website Friday afternoon, a health department-run lab has tested at least 253 Tarrant County residents between March 7 and April 2. Dallas County officials have said the two drive-through test sites there could process up to 5,000 tests a week.
With a larger outbreak in Dallas County and resources being diverted to hot spots in other states, Whitley said, it was not time for Tarrant County to push more aggressively for drive-through testing. If testing became more readily available or if drive-through sites could test everyone regardless of symptoms, he would advocate “loudly” for Tarrant County, he said.
“We’ll scream bloody murder then,” he said. “I would love to have one of these test sites come to town, but I’m not going to stand up and holler about when that decision was made weeks ago.”
On March 16, shortly after local officials first began publicly dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, Whitley said that Taneja had started discussions with the state about drive-through testing sites, but nothing definite had been pinned down at the time. Officials had been prioritizing locations.
“We’re trying to get the tests to the people who need them the most first,” Whitley said.
Tarrant County Testing
Taneja, during a briefing this week, said he would prefer testing be done through hospitals, clinics and urgent care facilities, instead of drive-through test sites, to limit person-to-person contact. He said he was optimistic private labs would develop new, quicker tests.
It was a point state officials echoed Friday. While Texans can seek COVID-19 tests through public health labs and federally-supported drive-through sites, Gov. Greg Abbott said that in the future he anticipates the primary providers of COVID-19 tests will be in the private healthcare sector.
When asked if the state was seeking additional support from FEMA to open more drive-through testing sites in metro areas, such as Tarrant County, that have yet to see them, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said Texas leads the nation in federally-supported sites, and stressed the need to support other testing options.
“At some point the feds have announced that they plan to withdraw their staff so they can shift into other missions,” Kidd said. “So eventually, we will see only locally-supported lanes that the state will continue our best to operate with PPE supplies and test results.”
Whitley had detailed a countywide drive-through testing plan of his own last month, that he envisioned as a “triage tree” network that would involve the county, hospital systems and private labs working in conjunction with one another. The goal was to eliminate a patchwork system of testing and instead have a coordinated effort so one hospital or location would not be overwhelmed.
Friday, Whitley noted the county provides a link to a Baylor, Scott and White questionnaire that people wanting a test can fill out online. If their symptoms meet CDC guidelines, the patient will be directed to a testing site, he said.
The link is not immediately distinguishable from other resources on the Tarrant County COVID-19 website. It is about midway down the page under the heading “RESOURCES and HOTLINES.”
Whitley said this system was better than drive-through test sites because it allows people to assess whether they truly need a coronavirus test from their home and can avoid lines at testing sites.
Calling Dallas’ testing sites “drive-through” is unfair and confusing, Whitley said, because it gives the impression that anyone can get tested regardless of symptoms. That has never been the case at any test site, he said.
“I think what we’ve got is a lot more considerate to our citizens than having everyone line up,” Whitley said. “There has not been a single site set up that says, ‘You can come get tested and if you don’t have symptoms we’ll test you anyway.’”
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said the city and hospitals have discussed whether pop-up or drive-through testings sites are needed, if supplies become available.
The city has made requests to the state and federal governments for more testing supplies, Price said.
While she believes widespread testing is needed, she stressed that a positive test result should not change a patient’s level of care. “If you’re sick enough, go to the hospital,” she sad. “And even if you haven’t been tested, isolate yourself from others.”
Fort Worth City Councilman Brian Byrd, who is a physician, said he was irritated Fort Worth did not have a similar system to Dallas.
A staffer in a clinic Byrd works at lost the sense of smell, a possible symptom of the novel coronavirus, so Byrd said he sent the person home. It could take up to two weeks for a private lab test to come back, he said. In the meantime the staffer can’t work, and it’s unclear if the person exposed anyone else to the virus.
Others are out of work as they wait for test results, Byrd said.
Fewer tests, less data
The lack of broad testing also means healthcare researchers have less data to track and predict the spread of the virus. Though some research shows Texas could see a peak in patients in the first of May, Taneja and other health officials have said the local spread has not been large enough to predict in Fort Worth.
Drive-through testing would provide a better understanding of the virus and allow researchers to explore who is immune, Byrd said.
“It’s not a good thing that we don’t have drive-through or quick testing here,” he said.
The heads of local hospital systems had met for the first time March 16 to discuss the logistics of Whitley’s coordinated testing plan, Whitley said.
“I’d really liked to have had the whole plan in place last week,” Whitley had said at the time. “It’s to their benefit to react, and to get this in place as soon as possible, because if things do ramp up, they’re going to want this even more to happen in this order so that they don’t get inundated in their emergency rooms.”
It was unclear Friday whether those discussions were continuing. But responses from two hospitals - Cook Childrens and John Peter Smith - to questions from the Star-Telegram indicated they are moving ahead with their own plans.
In an email Friday, Kim Brown, a spokeswoman for Cook Children’s, said the hospital is not involved in any drive-through testing plans.
In an email Friday afternoon, Diana Brodeur, a spokeswoman for JPS, said the hospital has various sample-taking locations, and samples are sent to different labs for testing, including the Tarrant County Public Health Department lab.
But the hospital hopes to be able to administer tests onsite soon.
“JPS has the capabilities for onsite testing, and is awaiting the delivery of high-demand supplies needed to begin the process,” Brodeur wrote. “The goal is for JPS to be able to conduct COVID-19 testing of patients in the hospital, with a one-hour turnaround time for results. It’s not clear at this point when those supplies will arrive.”
Grand Prairie testing site
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins three weeks ago said at a press conference that a test site at The Theatre in Grand Prairie, along with one in an American Airlines Center parking garage in downtown Dallas, would “test up to 5,000 people a week when we get those open and the feds send on the equipment for that.”
Whitley, at the time, noted that priority would continue to be Dallas County, but the Grand Prairie site was close to many Tarrant County residents.
The Grand Prairie site has yet to open. Instead a test site is open at the Ellis David Field House in South Dallas.
Andrew Fortune, the assistant to Grand Prairie’s city manager, had said on a March 16 tele-town hall organized by Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie, that the site would predominantly serve first responders and higher-risk populations based on the CDC’s criteria.
“We’re anticipating that starting up toward the end of the week,” Fortune said on the call.
But in an email Friday, Fortune said Dallas County has been the lead entity coordinating testing and that it had later changed its decision. He referred further questions to Jenkins’ office.
“The City of Grand Prairie has been working closely with our counties to ensure an efficient, coordinated response. After our phone call, the County changed their decision and moved the location,” Fortune wrote.
Tristan Hallman, a spokesman for Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, wrote in an email Friday that the city of Grand Prairie had asked for a 100% reimbursement for expenses associated with the site, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency couldn’t guarantee.
“So Dallas stepped in to take the site under a 75/25 cost split,” Hallman wrote.
Fortune said Friday that Grand Prairie did ask for financial commitments to cover the city’s costs, but that the city does, “not know if that played a role in the decision to move to the City of Dallas location or not.”
Officials had said at the time that the sites were supposed to be a joint operation between city, county and federal partners. Jenkins had said the effort would be led by Dr. Philip Huang, the director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, and Parkland Hospital — which has a testing site of its own for hospital patients.
While the testing site at the American Airlines center and the other at The Ellis Davis Field House moved forward, Fortune said he is not aware of discussions about a third drive-through site in Dallas County.
This story was originally published April 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
