VIDEO: Staff at the Idaho Bureau Laboratories are busy.
“We’ve tested more coronavirus samples, this year than all of the testing we did laboratory wide last year,” said Lab Director Dr. Christopher Ball.
Polymerase Chain Reaction Test samples are brought to a no-contact drop off area at the lab where they are sorted and documented. Once they are sorted, they are taken to another section of the lab where the virus is extracted from the sample and later detected in a different room through a digital system. A computer shows which tests have the virus and which ones don’t. “We need to make sure that we are double checking all of the results that we provide so that we give you the most accurate results possible,” said Dr. Ball.