California is way behind in testing and tracking coronavirus. It’s a big problem
LOS ANGELES — In the race to expand testing for the novel coronavirus and track the results, California has fallen behind New York and other hotspot states as an assortment of public and private groups pursue testing programs in an uncoordinated fashion.
A fragmented landscape akin to an orchestra playing without a conductor has emerged with public officials at the city, county and state levels scrambling to come up with testing options and priorities. At the same time, various universities and an increasing number of private, for-profit labs have developed their own testing schemes.
The result has been a confusing, incomplete picture of the virus in California.
Public health experts warn that a robust, coordinated testing program is crucial so the state knows not only who is infected but how quickly and where the virus is spreading in order to effectively deploy limited resources, such as protective equipment, ventilators and medical staff.
“We are cobbling together various approaches,” said Susan Butler-Wu, an associate professor of clinical pathology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and a director of a clinical microbiology lab in Los Angeles. “The whole thing is badly discombobulated ... . I think 100% that the system is broken.”
Certainly, Butler-Wu said, California is not alone, as the failure of federal health officials to establish a coordinated, nationwide testing strategy has given rise to a similar mishmash of testing options around the country. The impact, however, has been particularly blunt here, where the sheer size of the state and the large number of testing operations have exacerbated the problem.
In California, there are at least 22 state laboratories, seven hospitals and two private outfits conducting tests. It is unclear how testing at those sites is being tracked, in part because Gov. Gavin Newsom has not provided details. Newsom said Monday that part of the problem has been an inability by the state to accurately collect all test results. He has deflected, however, questions about California’s overall testing capacity and whether it could have ramped up more quickly.
By Sunday afternoon, approximately 26,400 tests had been conducted in the state, which has about 40 million people, according to the state’s official tally. The total was an increase of just 200 tests from the day before.
By contrast, New York, which has half as many residents and is grappling with the nation’s largest number of COVID-19 cases, had performed more than 78,000 tests as of Monday, according to the COVID Tracking Project, an independent group.
Based on population size, California’s official test numbers are not at the bottom of the state rankings, but it is below the national average of nearly 90 tests performed for every 100,000 residents, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of testing numbers tracked by the group. California also lags behind other states that have experienced large outbreaks of the virus, including Louisiana and Washington.
The United States as a whole was slow to ramp up testing for the virus after a test designed by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was found in early February to be flawed. Federal regulators then kept other labs from designing and using their own tests until Feb. 29, when they belatedly relaxed their rules.
Since then, dozens of companies as well as public and private labs have designed tests. But laboratories have struggled to process the sudden surge in demand.
In light of those backlogs, as well as shortages of materials needed to perform the tests, county health officials and hospitals around the state have largely stuck to guidelines from the CDC that reserve tests for those showing symptoms of the virus and at highest risk of contracting it.
Universities and other healthcare networks, such as UCLA, UC Davis and Kaiser Permanente, have developed their own tests, although the number being performed remains relatively small.
And local authorities across the state have been left to try to boost their own capabilities. Los Angeles County announced Monday it has secured 20,000 tests with a processing capacity of 5,000 tests per day. The kits will be free, and healthcare workers and first responders will be given priority for testing.