COVID-19 testing center draws hundreds first day
Fever of 100.4 degrees needed to get a test, officials say; 370 offered per day
HAYWARD >> Hundreds of sick people lined up near Fire Station No. 7 in Hayward on Monday hoping to get tested right then and there for coronavirus at a first-of-itskind testing center. To qualify, they had to have a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, officials said, but that appeared to be the main hurdle. The tests were free, and people didn’t need a doctor’s slip to take them.
“It’s for anybody, regardless of residency. You don’t have to live in the city of Hayward, you don’t have to be a citizen,” Capt. Don Nichelson of the Hayward Fire Department said. “We’ll take anybody from anywhere,” he added.
The city of Hayward set up the testing site across from the fire station at 28270 Huntwood Ave. in partnership with Avellino Labs, a private biotechnology firm based in Menlo Park.
Officials say they can test up to 370 people each day, and the site will be open every day for three weeks — welcome news for Bay Area residents who have tried to get tested through their health care provider or county health department, only to be turned away because of a shortage of tests or because they didn’t exhibit severe enough symptoms.
Tests were being administered by Hayward firefighters and paramedics, while screening was being done by firefighters, EMTs from United Ambulance and fire science students from Chabot College, officials said.
Those who were tested
could get results in a day’s time and in some cases as soon as six hours later because test kits are frequently sent to Avellino’s dedicated lab to be processed.
Eric Bernabei, the head of sales and marketing at Avellino, said Monday those being tested at the Hayward site should “absolutely” be confident in the accuracy of the results they get back.
Avellino has been given the green light to run tests on people while the company goes through the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization process and waits for a final letter of approval from the agency.
Bernabei said the company had to meet a strict set of standards that show its test kits meet the FDA’s threshold for “accuracy and repeatability.”
“We are permitted under the EUA (emergency use authorization) to run clinical samples at this time, until the approval is received, similar to Stanford and UCSF, who are also waiting for their letter (of approval),” Bernabei said.
This represents one of the first examples of a new effort to expand testing, with cities teaming up with commercial companies to offer help to those with mild or moderate symptoms but no easy access to a physician.
Yet even these strategies are restricted because commercial labs, like public labs, have limited tests and processing power.
On its first day, the test site proved popular.
Whether waiting inside cars in a long drive-up testing line along Huntwood Avenue or standing along a sidewalk in a line that wended through tree-lined Tennyson Park, people were anxious to get a test.
“I have been sick for the last five days,” Mayra Salvador, 55, of Bay Point, said while wearing a surgical mask and waiting in line.
“I’ve had a cough, fever, headache, stomach ache and a little trouble breathing,” she said.
Salvador, who is a nanny, said she was worried because she’s been running a fever for several days.
“I’m concerned that I have spread it already,” she said, even though she has not been working since she started feeling ill.
She said she tried twice to get tested through her doctor’s office at Kaiser but was told both times to stay home and isolate instead.
“I’m OK to wait in line because I’m hoping to get a test and get this situation resolved,” Salvador said.
Nichelson, the fire captain, said fire Chief Garrett Contreras had been researching ways to get testing done immediately in the community and connected with Avellino.
Soon after, City Manager Kelly McAdoo signed off on allocating $500,000 from the city budget to cover estimated costs of running the whole operation for about three weeks. Nichelson said the city expects to be reimbursed through state and federal disaster relief funds.
Nichelson said in the first few hours Monday, about 1 out of every 10 people in line met the threshold for a test after being screened for a fever and other symptoms, and about 1 out of every 5 people in cars were getting tests.
People hoping to get tested had been lining up near the site since roughly 6 a.m., even though the testing wasn’t scheduled to begin until 9 a.m., Nichelson said.
“We wanted to provide this service for people who are actually sick. We only have a limited number of test kits available, so we had to make that our top priority,” he said.
First responders and health care workers also were being screened at the fire station if they met the testing criteria, and by around 10 a.m. four had been tested, Nichelson said.
Some waiting in line during the chilly, gray morning were frustrated after being turned away because they were not informed they would need a fever to be tested. One elderly man, Pundit Prasad, of Hayward, said he walked to the line with his wife because both of them had been exposed to someone with some symptoms of COVID-19, but the pair was told to simply go home and isolate.
One woman told a fire department employee she drove from San Francisco to get tested. After waiting in line for nearly an hour and being told she and others wouldn’t qualify for a test without a fever, she said the information about testing requirements should have been made clearer ahead of time, or at least at the beginning of the line.
There were no interpreters for people who speak languages other than English, but the screening paperwork is printed in both English and Spanish, Nichelson said. It’s unclear whether interpreters would be available going forward.
Bernabei and Nichelson said the highly accessible testing is critical to help slow the spread of the disease.
“For every person that’s (infected) and that does not stay home or does not isolate, they are going to be infecting multiple people per day,” Bernabei said.
“People are very fearful,” he said. The testing helps “alleviate fear in people who are thinking, ‘I may be infectious, I may have been exposed, let me have this test, and now I know for sure,’ ” he said.
“With the way things are in the country right now, I believe this is extremely important to get people tested who need to be tested,” Nichelson said.
“They are being turned away by their doctors, clinics, the ERs, everywhere else trying to get tests, and here we’re providing this free of charge to the public.
“We’re hoping other cities will follow suit,” he said.