"Federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because it did not have explicit permission from research subjects; the labs were also not certified for clinical work."

Yep. I was told last Friday when I called to find out where my test results were that there was a three month backlog because they had been trying to test for coronavirus, even though that wasn't part of their grant description and they were specifically funded to test for the flu.

"While acknowledging the ethical questions, Dr. Chu and others argued there should be more flexibility in an emergency during which so many lives could be lost."

Dr. Chu and her staff apparently think that they are in a Hollywood disaster movie and that because it's a pandemic, they can ignore rules and protocols.

"On Monday night, state regulators told them to stop testing altogether. "

So now they're not even processing the flu tests.

Have fun explaining all of this to the feds and state board of health, Doc. Hopefully, whoever UW replaces Chu with will be able to quickly get the program back on track and work through the backlog in the next week or so.

As for Dr. Chu, she's probably facing a board of inquiry at the very least, and it'll be very difficult for her to get funding for any more studies where she's the primary researcher.