Newsom seeks to expand tests for coronavirus
SACRAMENTO — California is working with federal officials to expand the testing of possible coronavirus patients, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.
“We are currently in deep partnership with the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on one overriding protocol that drives our principal focus right now, and that’s testing,” Newsom said, calling expanded testing “our top priority, not just in the state of California but, I imagine, across the United States.”
Such an expansion includes both broadening the criteria that a person must meet to be tested for COVID-19, as well as getting more coronavirus test kits sent to California, he said. The state has 200 kits for both diagnostic and surveillance purposes, but federal officials say more will arrive in the coming days, he said.
In his first news conference to address the coronavirus issue, the governor sought to calm concerns and reassure Californians that the state will be prepared if the virus spreads. Despite several California communities having declared local emergencies over the outbreak, Newsom said there are currently no plans to declare a statewide emergency.
“We’re meeting this moment,” Newsom said. “We have been in constant contact with federal agencies.
We have history and expertise in this space. We are not overreacting, but nor are we underreacting to the understandable anxiety that many people have as it relates to this novel virus.”
The announcement comes after a Solano County woman became the country’s first coronavirus case in a patient who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in
contact with someone who did, raising the possibility that the virus is already spreading within the community. The woman was not tested for several days until after she was hospitalized because she did not fit CDC criteria, which include both symptoms of the virus and either a recent history of travel to China or close contact with another coronavirus patient.
The case demonstrates the need for more rapid testing of all coronavirus patients, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote Thursday in a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, who has been appointed the Trump administration’s coronavirus czar.
“I understand the newly diagnosed patient was not tested immediately for coronavirus, despite the request by her attending physicians at the University of California, Davis Medical Center,” she wrote. “It is unclear whether the delay was caused by overly restrictive CDC testing criteria or whether the CDC was unable to process the diagnostic test faster.”
A total of 33 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus in California, and five have since left the state, Newsom said. Of the confirmed cases, 24 were either evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship or returned on repatriation flights from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
Newsom said more than 8,400 people are being monitored in 49 local jurisdictions.
The state is “doing those protocols and monitoring as it relates to more traditional commercial flights that came in from points of concern and potential points of contact, particularly in Asia,” he said.
COVID-19 has infected more than 80,000 people in about three dozen countries since it was discovered in late December. More than 2,700 have died, most of them in mainland China.
There are currently 60 confirmed cases in the United States, and officials continue to stress that the risk to the general public remains low. Still, they are warning people to be prepared to see more U.S. cases.
“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” CDC Director Nancy Messonnier said Tuesday. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”
The warnings already are scaring away visitors to California. On Thursday, Microsoft and Epic Games announced they were pulling out of next month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Facebook also announced it has canceled the in-person portion of its annual F8 software developer conference, which was scheduled to take place May 5-6 in San Jose.
UC Davis officials said the Solano County coronavirus patient arrived at its medical center from another hospital Feb. 19 but was not tested until Sunday. The hospital said that precautions had been put in place because of health care workers’ concerns about the patient’s condition, but that it has asked a “small number” of employees to stay home and monitor their temperature.
The woman was “in her community” for a number of days before accessing care, California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Thursday.
Investigators are now working to find and contact any individuals who may have come in contact with the woman. The CDC has sent 10 staffers to help trace her contacts, Newsom said.