As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, six U.S. States still do not have public health labs set up to test for COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Alabama, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wyoming are still listed as being “in progress” to setting up verified labs with diagnostic tests.
U.S. Territories Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands are also listed as “in progress.”
The list was provided by the Association of Public Health Laboratories. All other states have verified labs that are using COVID-19 diagnostic tests.
The news comes as the CDC has upped the total number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. To 149. To date, 10 people have died from the outbreak and 13 states have reported cases.
The coronavirus test is a combination of a nasal swab and an oral swab. Currently, urgent care centers and organizations like CVS’s health clinics cannot conduct coronavirus tests on site, though that might change in the future.
The spread of the virus has had wide-ranging effects, from the delay of the new James Bond film to people rethinking travel plans.
More must-read stories from Coins2Day:
—How to think about COVID-19
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—Coronavirus is giving China cover to expand its surveillance. What happens next?
—Coronavirus shows why we need vaccines before, not after, an outbreak
—Before coronavirus, there were SARS and MERS. Do epidemics ever really end?
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