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Miami authorities must wait days for coronavirus results over delay in testing tools
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Thursday local authorities have to wait days for results on possible novel coronavirus cases because federal authorities haven’t sent a state lab in Miami the testing materials that can shorten the process to a few hours....
“I liken this to a hurricane threat,” he said at a press conference outside his 29th Floor offices in County Hall. The remarks followed the mayor’s first meeting on coronavirus with a string of county agencies and other government entities, including the school system, PortMiami and Miami International Airport. Gimenez said he met last week with state health officials on the virus.
The mayor expressed some frustration that a fix for testing kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not yet arrived at the state’s Miami lab. He said the delay forces officials to wait days for results from a lab hundreds of miles away, rather than the hours required for a local test....
The coronavirus scare overlaps with scrutiny of how county contractors manage sick employees. Security guards working for a private contractor hired by Miami International Airport recently told county commissioners they must forgo pay if they want to stay home sick, and risk losing their positions with Allied Universal. Union representatives said that since Miami-Dade does not require sick leave for contractors like Allied Universal and its competitors, most outsourced workers assigned to the county don’t get paid sick days....
“I liken this to a hurricane threat,” he said at a press conference outside his 29th Floor offices in County Hall. The remarks followed the mayor’s first meeting on coronavirus with a string of county agencies and other government entities, including the school system, PortMiami and Miami International Airport. Gimenez said he met last week with state health officials on the virus.
The mayor expressed some frustration that a fix for testing kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not yet arrived at the state’s Miami lab. He said the delay forces officials to wait days for results from a lab hundreds of miles away, rather than the hours required for a local test....
The coronavirus scare overlaps with scrutiny of how county contractors manage sick employees. Security guards working for a private contractor hired by Miami International Airport recently told county commissioners they must forgo pay if they want to stay home sick, and risk losing their positions with Allied Universal. Union representatives said that since Miami-Dade does not require sick leave for contractors like Allied Universal and its competitors, most outsourced workers assigned to the county don’t get paid sick days....
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article240659196.html
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