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Unfortunately, even they have limits to what they can do when the number of COVID cases surges, as is happening with Omicron.
Until now, Denmark has managed to genomically sequence every COVID test sample, allowing them to track variants with high precision. Starting this week, due to the high volume of cases, they have begun sequencing only a subset of positive cases.
Going forward, only a portion of the corona specimens will be tested for omicron
Due to the sharply increasing infection rates, the Statens Serum Institut is changing its strategy for testing positive samples with variant PCR. This means that people can no longer be told if they are infected with the omicron variant.
Last edited December 22, 2021
The corona epidemic is developing strongly right now. Before the weekend, the infection rate was as high as 10,000 daily infected.
This is the highest during the entire epidemic, and it is now causing the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) to change its strategy for testing samples with the so-called variant PCR test.
"Until Sunday 19 December, all positive corona samples have been tested with our variant PCR test. But from Monday 20 December, we will only test variant PCR tests on a representative sample, ”says TesctCenter Denmark's director Anne-Marie Vangsted.
That means the new strategy
The representative sample of samples tested with variant PCR is taken according to the algorithm used in whole genome sequencing (WGS).
This means that SSI no longer sends information to the Danish Agency for Patient Safety (STPS) that the omicron variant has been detected in the individual, positive samples.
"In this way, people will no longer be able to be informed whether they are infected with the omicron variant", says Anne-Marie Vangsted. She continues:
"With the Danish Health and Medicines Authority's new guidelines, it is no longer necessary for citizens to know whether it is omicron, as they must relate to the infection in the same way as before and follow the same instructions from coronasmitte.dk"
As with WGS, the non-sampled samples are stored in the Biobank. That way, you can test them later if needed.
Here in the United States - and in most of the rest of the world - only a small subset of positive tests are sequenced, so individual patients rarely know which variant they contracted. It matters little, since treatment is the same regardless of the variant.
But Omicron's expected surge will likely complicate and tax other testing and surveillance systems.
Daily numbers - which have always under represented the burden of the pandemic - are likely to be even further removed from reality. Caveat Lector.
