Sierra Nevada is doing their part to help local hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nevada brewery is stepping up to help in a unique way during the coronavirus pandemic.
Action news now reporter kristian lopez shows us how it is helping nearby hospitals with continued testing of patients.
<pkg nats.... a lab that would normally be used to test beer.
Nats transformed to help fight coronavirus.
Robin gregory/sierra nevada spokesperson: ken our owner spoke early on with enloe medical center to see how we could help.
Where there might be some gaps.
Right away, viral transport medium came up right away.
Viral transport medium or (v-t-m) is a mixture that preserves clinical samples for testing.
Sierra nevada regularly produces (v-t-m) to perform quality tests on their beers.
Robin gregory/sierra nevada spokesperson: it's a substance and provides nutrients so microorganisms can grow, when we do that for our beers, we look to see if there's bacteria or spoilage.
But with a covid test if there's coronavirus presence is in there, that will feed into the nutrients and be able to grow.
Kristian stand up: the partnership will allow local hospitals to increase the availability of coronavirus tests.
Robin: it's a necessary step for covid tests.
It allows you to store the sample for a period of time to be able to test it later on.
It was a smooth transition, if you think of medium as a recipe.
All they need is put in different ingredients.
The medium here for our beers is different but you just need different ingredients to make the medium for the covid tests.
That's when the hospital takes over.
Robin: they perform a final sterility check they give it the final check and its free to use for testing county wide.
So far they have provided 1,000 (v- t-m's) we are grateful to enloe for working with us for making this happen.
We are grateful to be able to help.
Kristian tag: sierra nevada says they hope this will inspire other companies to think outside the box when it comes to helping out during the coronavirus pandemic.
Reporting in chico kristian lopez action news now coverage you can count on, > sierra nevada says about a dozen employees are working in the quality assurance lab to help with the medium.
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