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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Vice President Mike Pence has an appointment Tuesday at Minnesota\u2019s Mayo Clinic to learn about a new coronavirus testing \u201cmoonshot\u201d that has the famed clinic partnering with the state and its flagship university to quickly boost the state\u2019s capacity to 20,000 tests a day. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s an approach that leverages a health care infrastructure not all states can match. And it should help Minnesota become one of the most aggressive states at testing on the scale experts say is necessary to safely reopen the economy. Minnesota is one of several states that have quit waiting for the federal government for help.<\/p>\n

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz unveiled the state\u2019s partnership with the University of Minnesota and Mayo last Wednesday, promising that every resident with symptoms of the coronavirus can get tested once the plan ramps up in the next few weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a state that\u2019s just going to get through COVID-19; this is a state that\u2019s going to lead this nation and the world out of this,\u201d Walz vowed of his \u201dmoonshot.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pence recognized Walz\u2019s efforts at a White House briefing Thursday, where he also praised Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for an initiative to boost his state\u2019s testing capacity to 22,000 per day through a partnership with reagent manufacturer Thermo Fisher. The vice president also cited Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds for a partnership with Utah-based startup Nomi Health aimed at increasing her state\u2019s lagging testing capacity by 3,000 per day from its current 1,000-2,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the kind of approach and commitment that we need, and I\u2019m glad the vice president is shining a light on promising efforts. We need more,\u201d Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said of Pence\u2019s visit to Mayo. \u201cKudos to Minnesota for being a part of that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Minnesota has one of the lowest confirmed cases per-capita in the country, but its testing has lagged behind what the Walz administration says is needed. An Associated Press analysis of data from the COVID Tracking Project shows that Minnesota now ranks among the lowest states in per-capita testing, sixth from the bottom at 10.51 per 100,000 residents, with Kansas last at 9.01. Rhode Island is the highest at 50.51. while New York, the hardest hit state, ranks second at 41.21.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinnesota is probably low in terms of tests per thousand compared with other states, but the good news for Minnesota is the testing that it\u2019s doing relative to the cases it\u2019s finding is relatively high … ,\u201d Nuzzo said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want the majority of your tests resulting in cases because that suggests there\u2019s many cases out there you\u2019re not finding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s death toll from the coronavirus rose by 14 to 286 as of Monday, while 214 new confirmed cases raised the statewide total to 3,816. State and private labs had conducted 61,268 tests as of Monday,<\/p>\n

There is huge variation across the country on how aggressive states have been about testing, said Dr. Joel Shalowitz, an adjunct professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. That\u2019s partly because some states that do a lot of testing, such as New York and New Jersey, are among the hardest hit states, while some states that do less testing also have fewer cases. So a lot of testing is driven by the need to test, or the alleged need, he said.<\/p>\n

While the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic are \u201cabsolutely world-class institutions,\u201d Shalowitz said, much will depend on how accurate their testing proves to be. False positives can force healthy patients into isolation, while false negatives can lead to infected people spreading the virus. Accuracy among other institutions varies widely, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Minnesota can increase its capacity to 20,000 tests per day, that would be a very meaningful increase in its testing capacity,\u201d said Dr. Thomas Tsai, a health policy researcher at the Harvard Global Health Institute. <\/p>\n

Being home to both the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic \u201cdoes increase the tools in the toolbox for being able to perform tests,\u201d he said. But test numbers aren\u2019t the whole answer, he cautioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesting capacity is one part of the puzzle,\u201d Tsai said \u201cThe most important piece is the strategy around testing \u2014 not waiting for people to show up. You have to do active contact tracing and active outreach into the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Vice President Mike Pence has an appointment Tuesday at Minnesota\u2019s Mayo Clinic to learn about a new coronavirus testing \u201cmoonshot\u201d that has the famed clinic partnering with the state and its flagship university to quickly boost the state\u2019s capacity to 20,000 tests a day. It\u2019s an approach that leverages a health care…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[952,825],"class_list":{"0":"post-24216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-clinic","9":"tag-pence"},"yoast_head":"\n