State won’t reach Pritzker’s goal of 10,000 tests per day this week

Gov. JB Pritzker said Wednesday the state won’t reach his goal of testing at least 10,000 individuals per day for COVID-19 by the end of this week.

As of Wednesday, labs in the state were processing 6,000 tests per day.

“We are not there yet,” Pritzker said.

He said that five newly acquired robotic machines intended to boost testing capacity at the state’s three testing labs have not matched the level of output originally anticipated.

Additionally, Pritzker said the machines have not produced “valid results in a way that meets our exacting standards.”

“I am as impatient as the rest of you are wanting to increase testing, but I will not sacrifice accuracy for the sake of speed,” he said.

Regarding the recently unveiled COVID-19 tests from North Chicago’s Abbott Laboratories that can produce results within 13 minutes, Pritzker said it is his understanding the federal government has redirected most of the early tests to private systems.

Illinois has so far received 15 of those machines, but only 120 tests. Officials said they are working to acquire the tests necessary to run the machines at “full bore.”

The state has started running three shifts at one of its three labs and plans to ramp up staff to a similar level soon at the other two labs. Pritzker said they will continue to work with the state’s universities, research laboratories and other innovation facilities to increase testing capacity.

Officials announced 82 more deaths Wednesday, surpassing yesterday’s previous high of single-day deaths. The state’s total death count is 462. There were 1,529 new cases reported Wednesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 15,078 in 78 counties.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said there was a “glimmer of hope” in that they are not seeing an exponential increase of cases as before.

“With guarded optimism, we’re hoping that we’re getting close to either the peak or the plateau,” she said, adding it is still difficult to predict exactly when that may occur.

There have been 75,066 total tests completed in Illinois. The department originally tracked the number of individuals tested, and Ezike and Pritzker said Wednesday the language has been changed due to improved testing that typically allows one swab for each test, rather than multiple swabs per test.

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