{"id":2455775,"date":"2020-03-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322635"},"modified":"2020-03-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T06:00:00","slug":"pitkin-county-stops-testing-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/pitkin-county-stops-testing-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitkin County stops testing for COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Local health officials have stopped testing individuals for COVID-19 due to resource constraints, and experts also said that a test doesn\u2019t constitute treatment anyway.<\/p>\n

Instead, officials urge people who have symptoms<\/a> of COVID-19, the new coronavirus that is now being spread community wide, to stay home for 14 days.<\/p>\n

Those who have severe symptoms and are in the vulnerable population of being elderly, or have health issues like compromised immune systems, are asked to call their physician first or the county\u2019s incident management team\u2019s hotline at 970-429-6186 where they will be prescreened.<\/p>\n

Dave Ressler, the chief executive officer at Aspen Valley Hospital, said during a media briefing Friday that the goal is to keep AVH open for patients who need medical care for serious cases of COVID-19 and other health emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are moving into a different phase where we\u2019re trying to control what we know already exists in our community,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a hospital, we expect that we are going to see patients now that we know that the virus is here, presenting to us for care, so that is our highest priority is to make sure that we are in a state of readiness and prepared to provide the services that these patients need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ressler also said testing, which was conducted Wednesday and Thursday in offsite locations, was never intended to be a treatment of the virus\u2019 symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t serve anybody\u2019s purpose to continue that testing considering that there are limited resources,\u201d he said, noting that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment\u2019s capacity is processing 160 tests a day. \u201cAs you can imagine these tests are coming in from all over Colorado, and we need to do our part to also be judicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob Helmus, a Transportation Security Administration agent who works at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, is currently self-isolating after he came down with a scratchy throat and shortness of breath Monday.<\/p>\n

He was told by his employer Thursday night to stop reporting to work and to get tested.<\/p>\n

Helmus said he called the county\u2019s hotline and was told by a health care specialist that his symptoms did not rise to the level of getting a test but that he should remain home for 14 days.<\/p>\n

He said he convinced his physician, who had limited specimen swabs, to test him for COVID-19 on Friday. He also was tested for the flu but that turned out to be negative.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 test was conducted in the doctor office\u2019s parking lot while Helmus wore a mask.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my exposure at the airport they did it,\u201d he said, adding that his doctor also was concerned about his oxygen levels.<\/p>\n

He is awaiting test results, which could take several days to come back, while he remains in self-isolation with his wife, who runs a private school in the valley.<\/p>\n

AVH has the capability to take swabs of people\u2019s noses and mouths and send the specimens to CDHPE\u2019s lab in Denver. But that will only occur if individuals meet the criteria established by health officials.<\/p>\n

AVH\u2019s chief clinical officer Lori Maloy said Friday that the hospital wants to be notified prior to a person with severe symptoms coming there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will get our gear on and get masks for them and bring them into the hospital, but we will bring them in through the back of the hospital, so that we\u2019re not taking them through where our visitors\u2019 family may be sitting or other staff that might be exposed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

No one has been brought in the hospital in that manner yet, Ressler said.<\/p>\n

Gabe Muething, director of Aspen Ambulance and a member of the incident management team<\/a>, said if there were more resources for testing, he\u2019d likely accept them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal with this is not to overwhelm already stretched state resources with the labs in their current capacity,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that as we move forward, we certainly want to evaluate how that testing would affect our community and how it would affect our treatment priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, we would make the decision, depending on what resources we have available.\u201d<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local health officials have stopped testing individuals for COVID-19 due to resource constraints, and experts also said that a test doesn\u2019t constitute treatment anyway. Instead, officials urge people who have symptoms of COVID-19, the new coronavirus that is now being spread community wide, to stay home for 14 days. Those who have severe symptoms and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 10:38:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}