In SARS-CoV-2, small steps but big wins
December 2020—By its very nature, the global pandemic has forced laboratories to look far and wide, to bring binoculars, in essence, to their views of supply chains, testing platforms, personnel, and the like. As COVID-19 churns on, some labs are looking through a tinier lens as well. These labs aren’t trading their binoculars for a jeweler’s loupe, exactly, but they have found small and significant success stories closer to home. Like so many others, Erin Graf, PhD, D(ABMM), has confronted a spinning roulette wheel since the pandemic’s start. In a talk she gave in an AMP webinar in October, Dr. Graf posted a vibrantly colored wheel titled, “Which supply chain issue will impact us this week?” Each segment contained a phrase familiar to everyone in 2020, ranging from “swabs” and “sheep blood agar” to “pipette tips” and “chlamydia and gonorrhea tests.” As she surveys these continuous claims on her attention, Dr. Graf says, “I think none of us could have ever thought that COVID would have an impact on all these arms of the testing that we do.”