Around the world, COVID-19 vaccination rates vary widely. In India, where a second wave of the virus has sent cases and deaths skyrocketing, only 1.7% of the population is fully vaccinated. [1] In Europe, there have been reports of lagging vaccinations.[2] And in the U.S., vaccinations have been steadily increasing but a new report indicates “we are quite close to the tipping point where demand for rather than supply of vaccines is our primary challenge.”[3]
To understand the post-vaccine COVID-19 testing landscape, 360Dx recently convened a panel of industry leaders to discuss how labs and test developers are preparing for changes in demand for SARS-CoV-2 testing. The result was a virtual roundtable discussion, “The Post-Vaccine COVID testing Landscape.”[4] One theme was clear: COVID testing isn’t going away any time soon.
During the discussion, the panelists discussed how demand for PCR-based testing remains strong, driven by several factors. “A lot of the pre-procedure testing or any kind of pre-admission testing to a healthcare facility is really being driven through PCR,” said Nathan Ledeboer, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of pathology and medical director for molecular diagnostics at Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of Wisconsin, during the roundtable. He continued, “The other really interesting group that we’re seeing a lot of activity in right now is, as we’ve started to see opening up a lot of our sports arenas and some of the public events, we’ve seen a fairly big push around testing in those spaces and in particular testing as someone’s arriving at the event.”
In addition, many labs are focused on school testing as one of the most important areas of need. “There’s no vaccine approved or authorized right now in children. And that’s a key population that we’re focused on in public health,” Kelly Wroblewski, MPH, MT, director of infectious diseases at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, pointed out during the virtual roundtable.
Looking ahead a few months, Mara Aspinall, professor of practice at Arizona State University and managing director of BlueStone Venture Partners, predicts there will be increased demand for testing when flu season arrives again. Aspinall added to the panel discussion: “We will have a flu season next year, and COVID will be soon enough in our memories that when somebody has respiratory or other symptoms, we’re not just going to assume it’s flu and do just a flu test.” She sees continued demand for multiplex panels that include coronavirus tests along with flu and RSV.
What about the next pandemic? Elizabeth Marlow, Ph.D., D., senior scientific director and head of R&D for infectious disease at Quest Diagnostics, said people outside of the infectious disease community haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about pandemics – until now. She calls more concerted, coordinated efforts to prevent future pandemics, including increased surveillance and test preparedness. “It’s going to take political will to get some of this done, but we have to think beyond our borders, because at the end of the day, our public health safety is intimately tied to our economic viability and our homeland security,” said Marlow.
To view the full discussion, download the virtual roundtable on demand.
Learn more about Thermo Fisher Scientific’s COVID-19 Testing Solutions.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56600660#:~:text=The%20World%20Health%20Organization%20(WHO,has%20been%20for%20several%20months.
[3] https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/supply-vs-demand-when-will-the-scales-tip-on-covid-19-vaccination-in-the-u-s/
[4] https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&partnerref=tfslp&eventid=3054189&sessionid=1&key=32FB977EEE0CDAADD155ED3DDB65653C®Tag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register