As of late, the company has already tested almost 15,000 of its 75,000 employees in a pilot program.
Thermo Fisher Scientific announced plans today to expand its COVID-19 testing for employees, according to the Boston Business Journal. This will allow workers to be tested every other week beginning in the New Year, which is how some colleges and universities carry out student testing. As of late, the company has already tested almost 15,000 of its 75,000 employees in a pilot program. Thermo Fisher is also a leading provider of COVID-19 tests.
It is worth noting that while CEO Marc Casper has compared the testing to the university and college models, some of these institutions require testing, rather than making it voluntary for students. In many cases, these tests are also carried out every couple of days, rather than every other week.
Back in October, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rolled out guidance for companies looking to test their employees for COVID-19.
“Employers are encouraged to collaborate with state, territorial, tribal and local health officials to determine whether and how to implement the following testing strategies and which one(s) would be most appropriate for their circumstances,” the CDC stated. “These considerations are meant to supplement, not replace, any federal, state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which workplaces must comply.”
The institution also noted that employers may want to consider conducting daily in-person or virtual health checks to identify workers with symptoms of the disease. However, the federal government does not require employers to offer COVID-19 tests, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In addition, these tests can eventually add up to a substantial cost, which employers are not always ready to pay. A survey by Arizona State University and the World Economic Forum discovered that companies most frequently cited cost and complexity as the reasons why they do not test their employees. The findings were based on responses from 1,141 facilities at over 1,100 companies around the globe between September and October.
According to the New York Times, the same survey discovered that just 17% of facilities were testing employees. At least half of those respondents were doing so, even for workers who weren’t showing symptoms. In addition, about half claimed that they were testing their employees at least once a week.
That being said, 28% of facilities that stated that they were not testing cited cost as the primary reason, with the complexity of testing (22%) shortly behind.
Despite these challenges, test development companies are seeing a boom as companies weigh the benefits of instituting such COVID-19 policies. Test company Quest Diagnostics announced last week that its COVID-19 molecular testing had increased by 50% compared to the final week of September.
“We have reported results of approximately 20.4 million COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests to patients and providers in the United States since we began to provide these services in March 2020,” the company said recently in a statement. “Over the last three weeks, we’ve seen a steady increase in demand and positivity rates, consistent with national trends. We continue to take measures to expand pooling and increase our physical capacity to address these dynamics.”
Quest Diagnostics went on to say that its 47,000 employees are taking the responsibility of helping Americans through COVID-19 very seriously. However, it noted that it cannot do it alone, as infection rates continue to rise across the country.
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