HOUSTON — Texas now the ability to test for COVID-19.
State leaders announced several state labs are up and running and are now able to test for coronavirus.
Gov. Greg Abbott said the new labs will help speed up the process of getting results back to local health departments.
Abbott said state testing is being conducted at 10 public health labs that are part of the Laboratory Response Network.
When they’re all up and running, the labs will be able to complete about 125 COVID-19 tests per day.
He said the state lab in Austin can perform tests for about 26 patients per day.
Public labs in Houston and El Paso now conducting tests and will be able to test 15 patients day.
Dallas and Lubbock will be able to tackle about 10 a day. Abbott said labs in Tyler, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Harlingen and Corpus Christi will be online by the end of the month.
“This new ability to provide testing in the state will shorten the time to get the test results and will help public health take the appropriate steps,” Abbott said. “By and large the general public is responding to this exactly the way they should be responding to it. They’re taking it seriously but they’re not panicking.”
The test includes nasal and oral swabs that are sent to one of these labs for processing and testing.
Health experts said test results could still take a few days depending on where they’re coming from.
