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MN Health Commissioner Says COVID-19 Tests Lagging
ST. PAUL -- Many Minnesotans are concerned about whether they'd be able to get a test if they develop symptoms of the COVID-19 virus.
Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcom says that's an ongoing concern across the state as many of the supplies and resources needed to administer and complete the tests are lacking right now...
We've really been focused on trying to help Minnesotans understand that there are big constraints on our ability to test as much as we would like due to the various supply issues that we've talked about, whether that's supplies in the laboratories or supplies in the healthcare workforce in terms of their abilities to collect swabs and so forth.
Malcolm says they are working to develop new testing methods which can be done more quickly and more broadly than what is available currently. One of those is a serology test which looks at a patient's blood to determine whether antibodies against the virus are present.
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