Will the PGA Tour affect local coronavirus testing? Fort Worth stop needs 400 tests
The PGA Tour rolled out a somewhat ambitious plan this week to resume professional golf amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, starting with Fort Worth’s Charles Schwab Challenge that includes providing about 400 COVID-19 tests for tournament participants.
Tour officials and a city councilman heavily involved in the golf tournament were adamant testing professional golfers and their caddies at the Colonial Country Club would not create a shortage of tests for Fort Worth residents, but neither immediately produced evidence that ordering hundreds of tests would not affect local testing. More information may be available closure to the tournament, scheduled for the week of June 8 with rounds June 11-14.
“This is in no way meant to limit care to our citizenry for the PGA,” said Fort Worth Councilman Dennis Shingleton, a longtime Colonial Country Club member.
On a conference call with journalists this week, the PGA repeatedly emphasized that the Tour would not take resources away from the community. The Tour will provide and pay for every test administered to run the event, as well as the costs associated with self-isolation for anyone who tests positive.
Testing is one element of a PGA plan designed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus as the golfers move around the country this summer and fall. The goal is to create a “bubble” for players and others associated with the tournaments by isolating them from the public as much as possible, and encouraging social distancing measures on and off the course.
The Tour has been in frequent contact with the city of Fort Worth and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center about the testing procedures, Andy Levinson, the PGA Tour’s senior vice president of tournament administration, said on the call.
“We are confident that we’ll be able to conduct our testing in a manner that is not taking away from the community,” he said.
Pressed for specifics about how the PGA would buy hundreds of tests, a Tour official told the Star-Telegram it was “premature to discuss” plans for testing. Shingleton and a city spokeswoman said details about the source of the tests would be available later in the week. Those details should prove that Fort Worth won’t be hurt by the PGA’s effort, they said.
But as of early Thursday afternoon, the city had not returned a request for the specifics. An emailed request for comment to UT Southwestern was also not returned.
Local testing
Widespread testing is not available in Fort Worth, but availability has improved since the start of the outbreak.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price told ESPN last weekend that the scale of testing would change “in about 10 days.’‘ Price’s office did not return a Star-Telegram request for clarification about what she meant, but Shingleton, who has a military background in medicine, said he thought widespread testing would include broadening criteria for who can get a test.
At most testing locations, people must have a doctor’s order or symptoms, be a first responder or other essential employee, or have come in close contact with someone with COVID-19.
Vinny Taneja, director of Tarrant County Public Health, told county commissioners this week conversations about expanding testing criteria at the county’s three testing sites were ongoing. Commissioner Roy Brooks had pressed Taneja to broaden essential workers to include grocery store and other retail clerks.
More than 1,000 people who filled out an online screening tool have qualified for a coronaviurs test through the county, but didn’t make an appointment. Others made an appointment, but didn’t show up, Taneja said, indicating that the desire for testing was diminishing.
Taneja said the county health department would likely not be involved in the PGA’s efforts to test at Colonial.
Shingleton said he didn’t know of consistent lines at testing sites, which he took to mean there was likely either not a shortage of tests or high demand locally.
On and off during the outbreak there has been a shortage of tests in Texas and across the country.
A test involves multiple parts, which may be hard to come by at various times. Nasal swabs, like an elongated Q-Tip, used to collect the sample may be hard to obtain, NPR reported this week. In the past, officials blamed a lack of reagent, the chemical used to process the test, as a reason Tarrant County had fewer tests.
County Judge Glen Whitley told reporters Tuesday a manufacturer of reagent was redirecting supplies from local tests sites to those in prisons and on reservations. Whitley has said the number of available tests is not an indication of the virus’ spread. Instead, he points to high hospital bed capacity as a sign the health care system is managing coronavirus.
Because available beds remain high, Whitley said he supports hosting the golf tournament.
Testing is only a snapshot of a person’s condition at that moment, Diana Cervantes, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at UNT Health Science Center, cautioned. Everyone, golfers included, should practice social distancing, avoid prolonged contact with others, wear a mask and frequently wash their hands to avoid exposure to the virus.
The PGA has said it will use a RT-PCR nasal swab or saliva test before the tournament with results returned within 48 hours. The PGA has not provided specifics about the brand of test.
The accuracy of these tests varies from company to company, Cervantes said. Both false positives and false negatives have been reported.
“You really have to assume anybody can be infected,” she said.
Shingleton, who has been a tournament volunteer for nearly 30 years, called hosting the first golf tournament in the age of coronavirus “virgin territory,” but said he believes that if golfers, caddies and others practice social distancing on the course and in the clubhouse, Fort Worth can prove that some sense of normal life can come back during the outbreak.
“We’re sticking our feet in the water here to asses the temperature, so it is a bit of ‘learn as you go,’” Shingleton said. “I think it says to our citizens, ‘Look things can be done, if they’re done in a proper and reasonable and cautious way’ ... we can enjoy this as a community and take pride in this.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 2:42 PM.
