Sonora Quest, Arizona’s largest lab, bolstering COVID-19 test operation

PHOENIX (AP) — After a record-breaking day last week of COVID-19 tests, officials at Sonora Quest Laboratories said Tuesday that Arizona’s largest diagnostic testing lab will expand its operation and be able to take on thousands more samples.

Sonora Quest went through almost 30,000 COVID-19 PCR tests on Jan. 4, the most since the pandemic began. It receives specimens from patient service centers and dozens of collection sites like drive-thru test lines, along with Banner Health facilities in six states.

The lab plans to add another “line”— a team of equipment plus 27 staffers including technicians and scientists — by this weekend, for a total of eight lines devoted to COVID-19 testing. Between those and other testing equipment, this will mean Sonora Quest would be able to go through as many as 38,000 tests in one day, chief operating officer Sonya Engle said during a tour of the lab’s Phoenix headquarters.

With a roughly 40% positivity rate among the tests it’s received in recent days, hitting a new record is a real possibility.

“With omicron, we saw even higher levels (of demand) than with delta,” Engle said. “We’re expecting to see the climb reach a plateau, and maybe it really could drop off in the next couple of weeks. But right now, we’re very busy.”

The 250,000-square-foot (23,226-square-meter) headquarters was buzzing Tuesday with masked workers running COVID-19 tests. Of 3,500 employees, 1,300 are based in this building.

Like most companies in recent days, it has seen a higher than usual number of absences due to the highly contagious omicron. Engle, however, said there has been no major backlog. Sonora Quest has a promised turnaround time of two to four days for test results. Results have been received on the earlier side “95% of the time.” She credits employees who are trained across more than one department for filling in where they can.

Sonora Quest does PCR tests, which look for the virus’s genetic material and then reproduces it millions of times until it’s detectable with a computer. It shares positive specimens with partners TGen and Quest Diagnostics, which do the genetic sequencing to determine the variant present.

An additional challenge brought on by the pandemic has been meeting an exponential growth in demand for other testing. There’s been a 20% jump alone for cancer-related testing, Engle said. She believes it’s spillover from people who delayed other health issues because of the virus.

“I hope…they get their COVD PCR testing, know their status and get into their doctor and stay on their regular checkups and other required testing to stay healthy,” Engle said.