Bullock hopes to ramp up COVID-19 testing capacity

Gov. Steve Bullock announced a plan to increase testing capacity in Montana – with a goal of reaching 60,000 COVID-19 tests conducted per month – during a call with the press on Wednesday afternoon.

“Among our core preparedness responsibilities is ensuring our ability to test symptomatic people for COVID-19 and trace contacts of COVID positive results, which we have been doing effectively,” Bullock said.

As of Wednesday, Montana had officially conducted 13,528 tests and confirmed 451 cases of COVID-19.

The governor said the short-term priority is getting medical providers to test anyone experiencing at least one symptom of the coronavirus, including one of the six new symptoms recently added by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention: chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and recent loss of taste or smell. Fever, cough and shortness of breath are still the most common symptoms.

“If any Montanan has one of more of these symptoms, I’m asking you to get tested,” Bullock said. He is also urging providers to do their part in conducting COVID-19 tests.

In the next few weeks, Bullock said he hopes to expand tests to “all residents who are willing,” plus nursing-home residents and employees. Eventually he would like to do “surveillance testing” in tribal communities and partner with community health centers to test health-care workers.

Bullock said his office is using $5 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to help local health departments and tribal health clinics enhance their COVID-19 contact tracing programs. He is also establishing five “strike teams” made up of a nurse and National Guard members who will respond to COVID-19 cases in nursing homes or long-term care facilities across the state.

Bullock said the federal government was providing states with 12.7 million testing swabs each month starting in May. Montana has received 15,000 in the last week from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with 7,000 more expected in the next week. A private vendor provided another 3,000 this week.

“It could still be a good long while before we’re looking at a vaccine,” Bullock said. “This virus is and will be in Montana for the foreseeable future.”

He said Montana will be “aggressively contact tracing” individual COVID-19 cases and the state will be there to assist local health departments.

Montana began phase one of its reopening plan this week, which included a partial opening of “Main Street and retail businesses” on Monday and a partial reopening of restaurants, bars, breweries and casinos on May 4. Bullock said there is no timetable for moving on to the next phase of reopening.

“We’re always to a certain degree looking backward,” the governor said. “Today’s transmission may not show up [in testing] for 6 to 14 days from now.”

“The better understanding we have of the virus, the better it informs us of what we can do collectively going forward.”

For more information on the state’s response to the pandemic and details on the reopening plan, visit covid19.mt.gov.

Reporter Colin Gaiser may be reached at cgaiser@dailyinterlake.com