CLEVELAND, Ohio - A kit that will enable the state to start testing for coronavirus should arrive in Ohio this week, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton said.

Acton, speaking to the cleveland.com editorial board Tuesday about what the state is doing to prepare for an inevitable COVID-19 outbreak, separately said Chinese containment efforts to stop the coronavirus dead in its tracks were never expected to keep the virus from spreading outside that country. Rather, containment was expected to just slow the spread of the virus.

When the testing kit arrives in Ohio, it will take about two days for the Ohio Department of Health’s public health laboratory, which is in eastern Columbus, to calibrate its equipment to ensure the test’s accuracy, said Acton, a licensed physician in preventive medicine.

The lab is where newborn screenings, and testing for anthrax, rabies and other conditions occur.

“They have been ready to do the testing,” she said.

Ohio-based testing

Currently, samples from people who may have coronavirus are sent from Ohio to one of two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labs. The CDC typically takes three to five days to return test results, prioritizing testing on the highest-risk cases, Acton said.

Medical workers take upper and lower respiratory specimens for testing. Samples are collected from swabs, sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage and other methods, said Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman Melanie Amato.

“It depends on how many we get, and how long that (testing) will take, but we will say probably 24 to 48 hours’ turnaround,” Acton said.

Who is responsible for the cost of testing?

Insurance companies pay for the testing for some patients, Acton said.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is looking into how it can cover testing for other people across the country.

“We have funds at ODH,” Acton said. “There will be no test that does not get done.”

Containment

Acton said that early on in the outbreak, the CDC told U.S. public health officials that containment “was an attempt to slow down the progression so we can get more emergency measures in place.”

Travel bans in China were unprecedented -- and unlikely to work in other parts of the world where people have more freedom of movement.

In Ohio, people who have arrived from China are being asked to self-quarantine, and everyone has complied, Acton said.

Those measures could work slowing the spread of the virus, which is also believed to be spread by asymptomatic people.

But with most pandemics, as the outbreak grows, public health officials will not be able to trace every place where infected people have visited, and track down everyone close to them to stop the virus’ spread.

“Eventually, there’s a time where it’s so widespread, we’re no longer doing that,” she said. “We’re no longer doing contact investigations. We’re no longer naming countries (from which people could be at risk) as you watch this progress.”

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State clarifies no new coronavirus tests of Ohioans for now