AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention now has the ability to test for the new coronavirus, ending the need to ship samples out of state, officials said Monday.
Samples collected in Maine before Friday were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab for testing. Several tests are still pending but no one has tested positive for the virus in the state.
Effective Monday, the state lab will conduct the tests, which take about 48 hours. The lab has the capacity to complete testing for 100 to 200 patients per day, officials said.
Samples that test positive for the virus, which causes COVID-19, will be classified as presumptive positives and will be sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation.
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This story has been updated to correct that COVID-19 is the disease caused by the virus, not the virus itself.
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