Looser guidelines allowing for more local testing

KESHENA — Testing guidelines for the COVID-19 coronavirus have loosened up recently, according to Dr. Kevin Culhane of the Menominee Tribal Clinic, meaning the number of those being tested for the virus in Shawano and Menominee counties will go up.

Culhane, clinical director at the Menominee Tribal Clinic, is also affiliated with ThedaCare Medical Center-Shawano and a member of the Shawano County Board of Health.

He said testing guidelines from ThedaCare and the state health department had been “pretty stringent” up until recently and prioritized patients in the hospital with pneumonia and health care workers treating them.

The clinic, along with ThedaCare, sends its tests to the Mayo Clinic for processing, he said.

Testing capacity at the Mayo Clinic has recently increased.

“We’re able to test more now,” Culhane said. “We’re able to test high-risk patients who are symptomatic, like older people or immune-compromised people, if they have acute symptoms.”

Culhane said the clinic had to be very picky initially in who was tested.

“It was very restrictive,” he said.

The clinic also had a limited number of the specialized swabs needed for testing.

“We did test some people early on that weren’t necessarily in the hospital and those swabs (the Mayo Clinic) wouldn’t even run,” Culhane said. “They were too swamped with more seriously ill people.”

The Mayo Clinic has since expanded its testing criteria.

“It’s slowly gotten better,” Culhane said. “I’m hopeful over the next month things are going to continue to increase and get better in terms of testing.”

The tribal clinic has also been allocated more testing swabs now that it is working through the Mayo Clinic rather than the state health department.

Testing numbers reported for Menominee County have been significantly lower than those reported in Shawano County.

As of April 13, there were 210 reported tests in Shawano County compared to 12 in Menominee County.

The numbers reflect where the tested person lives, not necessarily where they were tested.

The tribal clinic has tested a number of people with Shawano County addresses.

Culhane speculated that the higher numbers in Shawano County might be in part due to more health care providers being available, the location of a ThedaCare hospital and a large number of EMS workers.

He also said there were more nursing homes where people would be in a higher tier for testing.

Culhane said prevention continues to be the best method for fighting the coronavirus, including social distancing, wearing masks in public and hand-washing.

“It’s more important in the short-run than relying on testing,” he said. “All we can do is control what we do here and now. Our behavior now really impact those cases two weeks from now. If we can redouble our efforts, it will pay those dividends down the road.”

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