Free private coronavirus drive-thru testing begins in Sacramento via online appointments
A free drive-up coronavirus testing program will launch in Sacramento on Tuesday, sponsored by Google’s parent company Alphabet and aimed at relieving the testing burden at hospitals and government labs by giving people with milder symptoms a mobile site to be checked.
The initiative, called Project Baseline, is a website screening program that was launched with good results in the Bay Area a week ago. Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose office has been working with Verily, has said he wants to see the company’s private testing program expand to multiple counties in the coming weeks. Another Verily mobile screening site is opening as well in Riverside County.
Sacramento County residents experiencing mild to moderate symptoms and who are age 18 or older can now fill out Project Baseline’s “COVID-19 screener” to see if they are qualified for in-person testing.
The project is a clinical research project, conducted in cooperation with several universities. Results are texted to participants.
The physical locations of the testing site or sites have not been shared publicly. Verily sent a press statement early Monday, saying it was opening its program in Sacramento, then later clarified mid-morning that the Sacramento screenings will begin on Tuesday.
A Verily official said the goal is to take some of the burden off the government and hospital testing labs. A Bee review of the company’s test site last week showed an initial threshold question that weeded out people who said they are experiencing severe symptoms. Those people are directed to contact their healthcare providers.
“This program is meant to reduce the burden on our hospital system and is complementary to testing happening in a clinical care situation,” Verily said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee. “People with acute symptoms need acute triage and should not be coming to the sample collection sites, as the sites are not prepared to provide medical care.”
A Verily spokesperson said the company is making adjustments as it goes to allow more high-risk people to qualify for a screening. “We will be adjusting the triage algorithm to prioritize a broader set of high-risk individuals. The benefit of testing higher risk populations is to identify community spread and to determine where we will need critical medical infrastructure like hospital beds and ventilators.”
Screening takes users’ basic contact and scheduling information, and other data collected by Verily that include a signed authorization form, survey responses and test results, may be shared with health professionals at specimen collection sites; clinical laboratories; the California Department of Health; and “and potentially other federal, state, and local health authorities, as requested or mandated for public health purposes,” an FAQ page explains.
The project launched with pilot programs in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties on March 15, but has since expanded to include the Lake Elsinore area in Riverside County as well as Sacramento.
Santa Clara and San Mateo are among California’s most severely impacted by the coronavirus, with Santa Clara County’s public health department reporting 302 confirmed cases and 10 deaths as of 4 p.m. Sunday.
Sacramento County, which last updated COVID-19 figures Friday afternoon, at that time had reported 53 confirmed cases and three deaths from the coronavirus.
According to a blog post on the Project Baseline website last Thursday, the project last week established at least three sites in the two Bay Area counties, including “two large expo centers that facilitate drive through screening and sample collection.”
“In the first days of on-site testing, more than 130 individuals were tested,” the post said.
More than 12,000 people had used the online screening tool as of the Thursday post.
The coronavirus has infected more than 1,400 Californians and killed close to 30 in the state as of Saturday night, according to the California Department of Public Health. Common symptoms of the respiratory disease include fever, cough, fatigue and shortness of breath.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
