SALEM — The Oregon Health Authority on Tuesday released new guidelines widening the pool of Oregonians eligible for coronavirus testing after acknowledging last week that more tests could be completed with the supplies on hand.

State officials stopped their practice of discouraging testing of people with mild symptoms, emphasizing that it’s up to a doctor or nurse to decide if testing is warranted. The state also began encouraging testing for people with symptoms who are members of minority groups, direct-care workers and front-line workers, such as people who work in grocery stores or food services.

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state epidemiologist and health officer, said Tuesday that the state is “not standing in the way” of testing people with mild symptoms who aren’t on the state’s priority list for most at-risk groups, and testing decisions should be made by health care providers.

If Oregonians with mild symptoms are still turned away for testing under the state’s new guidance issued to physicians, Sidelinger said, “I would encourage them to have that dialogue with their provider.”

“We don’t want to step in between the provider-patient relationship in public health,” he said.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported over the weekend that the state’s restrictive testing guidance were helping keep Oregon’s testing numbers low, even as states such as Utah and New Mexico have eased restrictions and promoted widespread testing.

Oregon ranks in the bottom half of the country in per-capita testing and hospital and health care providers told the newsroom that hundreds of tests are going unused each day. Some people with symptoms have nonetheless been turned away because they aren’t part of the most at-risk groups.

It’s unclear how the looser testing guidance unveiled Tuesday will increase testing across Oregon. The state in recent weeks has reported about 1,300 tests per day, on average, and Sidelinger said he didn’t know how that might change.

“Over the next few days, we’ll see if people are using these, what our testing numbers do,” he said.

Until Tuesday, the state’s guidance told health care providers in bold letters that people with mild symptoms or no symptoms are “not recommended for testing at this time.”

While not exactly a ringing endorsement for testing, the state modified that to say: “It is recommended that people without symptoms and those with symptoms that do not necessitate medical evaluation call their provider to discuss symptoms and whether they need to be evaluated.”

The state has also expanded the pool of people with symptoms of cough, fever and shortness of breath who are eligible for testing. The new groups include people of color and people who provide direct care, such as hospice workers, physical therapists, and also front-line workers.

Front-line workers include people who work in grocery stores, pharmacies, delivery, food service and transportation.

In another change, the state has now encouraged coronavirus tests for people without symptoms in limited circumstances: for residents, children, employees and others in care facilities such as nursing homes, schools, day cares, health care facilities, or in jails and prisons. Screening is conditioned on laboratories having enough capacity to process the tests.

The other notable change in testing is at the Oregon State Public Health Lab, which is run by the health authority.

The state now says it will analyze tests at its lab for people with symptoms at care facilities, and may consider testing people without symptoms. That’s a big shift: state officials originally said they would use their lab to run tests for people in care facilities, then reversed course and said they would only provide minimal testing assistance because they were too busy.

Now the pendulum has swung back toward full testing by the state lab. The change is happening as state officials have few tests to process, with most hospitalized patients now having test results analyzed by in-house hospital labs.

It remains unclear what Oregon’s overall testing capacity is. Sidelinger last week said he’d like to see the ability to conduct 15,000 tests statewide in a given week but told The Oregonian/OregonLive he didn’t know the existing capacity.

Hours before that, the deputy state epidemiologist, Dr. Thomas Jeanne, told doctors that Oregon’s capacity stood at 1,900 tests a day — which would equal 13,300 over a week.

Philip Schmidt, a state spokesman, on Tuesday said Jeanne’s comment were based on a survey and were only for the Portland-metro area, not the entire state.

“Overall, I’d say our testing capacity is currently doing quite well in state,” Jeanne told doctors during a conference call. “We have the capacity for about 1,900 tests per day, including our state lab, all the hospital systems labs. That’s not including the out of state testing through LabCorp and Quest.”

Here’s the state’s latest guidance, which is dated April 20:

It is recommended that people without symptoms and those with symptoms that do not necessitate medical evaluation call their provider to discuss symptoms and whether they need to be evaluated. Individuals with mild symptoms that do not necessitate medical evaluation should remain at home until 72 hours after any fever or cough resolve. People with mild or moderate COVID19-like illness who seek testing risk exposing others in healthcare settings, including members of the public, other patients, and healthcare workers. For individuals with mild symptoms who present for care, testing is at the discretion of the provider. Evaluation and testing of such people in a healthcare setting consumes resources that may become extremely limited, including personal protective equipment (PPE), swabs and viral transport media used to collect diagnostic specimens, and ties up clinical resources, including healthcare staff and rooms.

This article was originally published by The Oregonian/OregonLive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving heath issue.