Return to Membership > ASA Member Bulletin - March 2020 - COVID19 GA
COVID-19 UPDATE: The Importance of General Aviation
In response to Covid-19, President Trump declared a national State of Emergency this afternoon. He expressed in this afternoon’s press conference that this declaration will permit the waiver/suspension of a number of standards that impede doctors and hospitals from providing emergency care on a wide-spread basis. This includes waivers of waiting periods, restrictions on visitors in nursing homes, and use of technology for communications with doctors.
He noted that CDC is advising cancellation of work-sponsored travel, and avoidance of large-group-gatherings. These sort of limits on travel will certainly impact aviation.
The President has been working with commercial laboratories on strategies for making Covid-19 tests more readily available. The FDA has approved a new Covid-19 test from Roche and the President expected that this will make hundreds of thousands of new test kits available very rapidly.
The White House has announced a plan to have “drive-thru” locations for testing, with the assays being shipped to the laboratory locations at which they will be tested,with the intent to get results back in 24-36 hours. Today’s Press Conference specifically recognized Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp for their role in developing the capabilites to perform these new tests.
But how do the diagnostic samples get from the “drive-thru” locations to the testing labs? Both Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp maintain fleets of general aviation aircraft that make their runs every night, collecting the diagnostic samples and bringing them to central testing laboratories. This allows allows the efficient use of cutting-edge testing equipment in those central locations. Without these aircraft fleets, the mechanisms for economical nation-wide testing of diagnostics samples simply would not work.
Aviation is the hidden partner that makes diagnostic testing possible.
Here is a Link to the President’s Press Conference Announcing the State of Emergency:
