Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

CEO: UMC on track to perform 4,000 coronavirus tests a day by May 1

University Medical Center

Steve Marcus

An exterior view of University Medical Center Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014.

University Medical Center will significantly ramp up its coronavirus testing capacity over the next several weeks, officials say, a key component in reopening the community and containing any future outbreaks.

UMC’s lab, which currently has the capacity to conduct 500 coronavirus tests per day, will be able to conduct 1,500 tests per day by Saturday and 4,000 tests by May 1. By June 1, the lab will be able to process 10,000 tests per day.

Known as polymerase chain reaction tests, or PCR tests, show whether someone has COVID-19. The tests take about 24 hours for results to be known.

UMC CEO Mason VanHouweling credits the hospital's testing improvements to a team effort between UMC and the state’s COVID-19 Task Force. UMC also converted an outpatient therapy area into a second lab.

“It was really a team effort and great collaboration by everyone,” he said in a briefing Tuesday to the Clark County Commission.

UMC will also launch coronavirus antibody testing by May 30. These tests can show whether the test subject has an active infection or has recovered from COVID-19.

VanHoweling said he was teaming up Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck and Dr. Fermin Leguen, Southern Nevada Health District's acting chief health officer, on guidelines for who will be tested, and when and where the testing will occur.

Currently tests are only given to those who have symptoms of COVID-19 and are under doctor’s orders to get tested.

More details on expanded testing capabilities will be released next week.

VanHoweling said Southern Nevada was in good standing as far as hospital staffing levels, available beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment goes. At this time, around 65% of the community's 4,499 beds and 76% of its 612 ICU beds are occupied. These beds don't include the 2,000-plus beds from the county's surge plan that are available if needed.

Around 40% of Southern Nevada's 679 ventilators are in use; of those, 111 are being used by patients suffering from COVID-19.

He said he felt confident that should a spike in COVID-19 cases arise, hospitals in the valley will be ready.

“Things are ticking in the right direction throughout all of our hospitals,” he said.

Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick said while the increase in testing put the community in good standing to contain the virus, she wasn’t in a hurry to allow nonessential businesses to reopen too soon.

“We want to do this methodically and we want to ensure that we only have to do it once,” she said. “We are working with the state and have supported our governor 100%. It is our responsibility as the Clark County Commission to reopen the Las Vegas Strip and to ensure that we do that right.”

This significantly contradicts Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who last week called the statewide business shutdown because of the coronavirus outbreak “total insanity.”

“Those whom we’ve lost represent less than a half of 1% of our population, which has caused us to shut down our entire state and everything that makes Nevada unique,” Goodman said April 15.