California coronavirus fight gets federal assistance as testing and funding increase
Millions of dollars in federal funding are flowing into the state to bolster the public health response to COVID-19, officials announced Wednesday as laboratories across the state ramp up their ability to test for the virus that claimed its first California victim earlier in the day in Placer County.
Calling the elderly Rocklin man’s death, a “profound moment in our state,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency to combat and contain the virus.
The man had underlying health conditions, and was the second confirmed case of COVID-19 in the county. The patient tested positive on Tuesday and had been isolated at Kaiser Roseville in “critically ill” condition, health officials said.
Despite the grim milestone, Stanford infectious disease physician Dr. Aruna Subramanian on Wednesday sees momentum building in the public health response to coronavirus as the capacity to test for COVID-19 increases.
By Wednesday, “our hospital here at Stanford will be able to do much wider testing. Many hospitals throughout the country have now gotten FDA approval to use their own, and so testing is going up,” Subramanian said. “There is some concern that it took this long, and maybe it was a bit slow, but I feel like we are making up for that by really ramping up laboratories.”
Last week in Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he and state health officials received assurances from the federal government of a robust response including an exponential increase in the ability to test for the virus.
“The CDC is moving expeditiously on this,” Newsom told reporters last week. “There is nothing more important than point-of-contact testing. It’s our top priority.”
California received enough COVID-19 diagnostic tests over the weekend from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test thousands of specimens, California Department of Public Health officials said.
Kaiser Permanente, too, is working with state and federal public health officials to provide testing for patients, officials at the Oakland-based health care network said Wednesday.
Dr. Stephen Parodi, associate executive director of The Permanente Medical Group, said Kaiser is “in the process of implementing a lab-developed test for use within the Kaiser Permanente laboratory,” but added that providing that testing is several weeks out.
Meantime, Southern California health officials said they are also intensifying their efforts, with more test kits on the way.
“We are increasing our capacity for testing at our local public health lab,” Dr. Darlene Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health, announced at a Wednesday morning news conference in downtown Los Angeles, where she declared a local health emergency.
Los Angeles County is home to one of the 10 California public health labs that have received CDC test kits. L.A. public health officials have been testing for COVID-19 since Feb. 26, Ferrer said.
Ferrer also announced six new cases of coronavirus in the county, bringing the total there to seven.
All six of the cases were confirmed late Tuesday. All are linked to what Ferrer said was an “assumed known exposure,” and not a case of community spread as was the case of the Solano County woman now being treated at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
“There’s either a travel history to an area with an outbreak, there’s exposure to known travelers coming from areas where there’s an outbreak or the person is a close contact with a confirmed case,” Ferrer said. “This means as of today we have no known cases of community transmission.”
The ability to test and the ready access to the kits was key to identifying coronavirus in Placer County’s first confirmed case earlier this week – a health care worker at the Vacaville hospital that treated the Solano County woman now hospitalized at UC Davis Medical Center.
Sacramento County can now test for the virus and was able to turn results around in less than 48 hours, said Placer County health officer Dr. Aimee Sisson earlier this week.
An added boost to response efforts came Wednesday when U.S. Health and Human Services announced the release of $4.5 million to California in what it said was initial funding to curb the virus’ spread.
“State and local governments are the backbone of our public health system. They have been essential partners in the ongoing work to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the United States,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Trump administration is acting swiftly through every avenue we have to ensure state and local governments have the support they need to combat this outbreak.”
The Bee’s Sophia Bollag contributed to this report.
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