Denver, CO – Governor Jared Polis blocked private testing centers for over a month despite calling for more COVID-19 testing before opening up the economy.
A CBS4 exclusive from Shaun Boyd broke the news last night.
Centennial State Lab reportedly started ramping up testing capacity over a month ago. They developed their own test, which they claim is 99.9% accurate.
“We bulked up on collection devices, we bulked up on extraction kits and reagents, we bulked up on pipette tips,” says lab owner Blake Whealy.
Blake Whealy, Centennial State Lab Owner: From CBS4
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention approved their lab for testing on March 10, 2020. That is before Polis’ “Stay at Home” order went into effect.
“The day we got word, we were sitting in Gov. Polis’ office. We wanted to let them know we’re here, and we’re here to help the community,” says lab co-owner Ryan Thomas.
Ryan Thomas, Centennial State Lab Co-owner: From CBS4
They say they needed Polis to make an administrative rule change so health care providers could use their lab for testing. Polis has apparently refused to make this change for nearly six weeks.
“1,300 a day would help, but it’s not mass testing,” Polis told Boyd.
Governor Jared Polis, From CBS4
1,300 tests per day would be a massive increase over the current testing capacity.
So, Polis blocked private testing centers. This is a major failure by Polis to provide the testing he claims is needed to reopen Colorado’s economy.
As it currently stands, Polis will not fully lift restrictions until there is a vaccine or mass testing available. If this is the case, why is Polis blocking out-of-network private labs from testing?
There is no good reason, and this failure rests solely on Polis’ shoulders.
Related Article:
Gov. Polis Blocking Pres. Trump’s Efforts to Expand COVID-19 Testing
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If you elect liberal fascist tyrants, well, you are getting the fascism you voted for. There will be hundreds of thousands of jobs that will not come back to Colorado due to this Trump haters agenda. But hey libby’s, any cost to try to take Trump down, even if it turns out to be a decade long Depression.
Get to work for the people !! a month for, what I understand as a “Quick” fix !!& your refuse to help the PEOPLE of Colorado ??? Really people we could’ve done SOooooo Much Better than this Clownish Book reader !
I have had the same experience with my three medical clinics for the past 6 weeks. As soon as I received the notification from one of my laboratories that they had CDC and FDA approvals to test for COVID 19 and the supplies to test 50,000 patients I immediately contacted the health departments in Pueblo, El Paso & Denver counties where my clinics are located. After multiple emails and telephone messages and conversations with staff of each of the health departments we were only able to connect and provide service for the Pueblo County health department. I then contacted the print and broadcast media to let them know that testing was available without restrictions and to date not one of my emails were returned as the press continue to report that testing sites and availability are limited. Not sure why none of these agencies and media outlets do not want the residents of their communities to know that testing is available with the exception of Pueblo County.