Mayo Clinic now able to handle thousands of COVID-19 tests a day

Mayo Clinic revealed Thursday that it now has the capacity to process as many as 4,000 coronavirus tests per day.

The Clinic had initially been limited to a few hundred tests per day.

The increased capacity, the Clinic said, is being made possible by using three high-throughput diagnostic processors from Roche Diagnostics. The instruments are being used in addition to the COVID-19 testing developed by Mayo Clinic's Clinical Virology Laboratory.

"Our expanded capacity will expedite caring for patients at this critical time, and hopefully will ease the burden being felt at test processing laboratories in Minnesota and a growing number of geographies,” said Dr. William Morice, II, president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories.

The new equipment — which went online Tuesday at Mayo’s Superior Drive Support Center in northwest Rochester — now allows Mayo to test samples from all of its sites. Additionally, Mayo has begun processing test samples from clients across Minnesota, including eight major health systems.

Moving forward, Morice said he expects Mayo to ramp up its capabilities even more in the coming weeks. There are now confirmed cases of the virus in all 50 states. There have been six cases here in Olmsted County.

“We anticipate that with the ongoing need for COVID-19 testing that we will need to expand our capabilities, and we're prepared to do that," he said.

Cover photo courtesy Mayo Clinic