SCATTERSHOT STRATEGY

Nearly 40% of Coronavirus Tests Take So Long to Come Back They’re Useless

Results that take more than two days to return cause difficulty in contact tracing, and three-day old results are effectively meaningless.

About 40 percent of Americans who receive a coronavirus test have had to wait more than three days to receive their results, according to a CNBC survey of 9,400 people, rendering them effectively useless. “It’s really clear that if tests take more than 48 hours, you’ve lost the window for contact tracing,” Harvard University global health professor Dr. Ashish Jha said. “I think, basically, beyond 72 hours, the test is close to useless.” Potentially infected people are unlikely to self-quarantine if their results take longer than three days to come back, experts say, heightening the risk of transmission and lowering the ability to contact trace. However, the length of time it takes for results to be returned varies by state­. In Massachusetts, the average wait time is about two days, whereas in Indiana it is more than five. Jha attributes the variation to a fragmented testing strategy, something she says a unified federal response could resolve.