Last week, after Mayor Eric Garcetti introduced that Los Angeles was providing COVID-19 assessments to all metropolis and county residents, I made a decision to get one myself — and take a look at Garcetti’s daring new promise within the cut price.
I used to be stunned how simply I used to be in a position to log on to L.A.’s testing website. I answered a number of questions on myself, together with whether or not I had any signs of the illness — the reply was no — and inside three minutes, I had a same-day appointment at one among eight city-run testing websites.
In reality, it was a same-hour appointment. I rushed out of the home unshowered to drive throughout a big swath of the county to the positioning — a Los Angeles Fire Department coaching middle subsequent to Dodger Stadium.
The journey would simply take 90 minutes in non-pandemic instances, however I acquired to the designated freeway off-ramp in underneath half an hour. That’s when the site visitors jam started: It took 75 minutes to snake my approach the extra half-mile to a crimson tent, the place a masked fireplace division worker handed me a zip-close bag containing the testing supplies.
She directed me to one among three lanes up forward, the place I sat in my automotive and carried out the take a look at on myself.
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I rolled a cotton swab in my mouth for 30 seconds, dropped it into a transparent liquid inside a take a look at tube, twisted the cap onto the tube and positioned it again within the plastic bag. A protectively swathed attendant plucked the bag from my hand with metallic tongs as I held it out of my automotive window, and deposited it in a big blue bin.
It was all quite simple. I used to be now amongst 10,000 L.A. County residents who visited a metropolis testing web site that day — triple the variety of earlier days, when assessments had been restricted to these with coronavirus signs or these thought-about high-risk even when asymptomatic.
The mayor is clearly pleased with his new technique. At a information convention final week, he spoke of the reward he had obtained from medical doctors, public well being officers and different mayors who, he mentioned, advised him, “Thank you for leading the way.”
At a time when a shortage of tests nonetheless impedes efforts to grapple with the virus in lots of components of California and the remainder of the U.S., it’s noteworthy that Garcetti is now providing testing to all 10 million-plus residents of the nation’s largest county.
“That’s a story in and of itself: that they have the availability and they can make this effort,” Ronald Brookmeyer, dean of the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, advised me.
But Garcetti’s plan is just not a silver bullet. Though public well being consultants say it is important to know the way many individuals with out signs are virus carriers, tens of millions of individuals might select to not get examined. And even should you don’t have the virus once you take the take a look at, that’s no safety in opposition to future an infection.
What officers do with the outcomes is essential, mentioned Brookmeyer. They have to observe up on the constructive circumstances to achieve associates, relations, colleagues and different contacts who might have been uncovered — a course of often known as “contact tracing.” They should additionally discover methods to soundly isolate those that take a look at constructive and defend weak individuals of their lives. “We have to get the most bang for the buck of every single test that we do,” Brookmeyer mentioned.
Garcetti mentioned he would hand over COVID-positive circumstances for contact tracing and different follow-up to public well being officers from L.A. County, which incorporates the town of L.A. and practically 230 smaller communities.
Testing websites run by the county are sticking to the extra restrictive coverage of accommodating solely those that are symptomatic or at excessive danger, which now consists of individuals in important jobs, reminiscent of well being care staff, first responders and meals provide staff.
That determination was made partly as a result of testing capability remains to be constrained, Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of L.A. County’s Department of Health Services, mentioned at a information convention.
Garcetti promised the town’s take a look at websites will proceed to offer precedence to these teams, at the same time as testing is opened as much as the overall inhabitants, however he mentioned the town has stockpiled 300,000 assessments, with extra on the best way. Kyle Arteaga, a spokesperson for the provider, San Dimas, California-based Curative Inc., mentioned the corporate can meet L.A.’s expanded demand.
The metropolis is paying a median of about $120 for every take a look at, however the value might drop as a lot as 10% if there have been a big improve in quantity. If L.A. ended up doing one million assessments, it might doubtless price the town between about $110 million and $120 million.
Wider testing of the inhabitants will finally be vital to subdue the virus, largely as a result of a big variety of contaminated individuals haven’t any signs and have to know to allow them to keep away from infecting others.
But the testing program has limitations. First, any outcomes will present a biased pattern, because the Angelenos who make and maintain appointments can be skewed towards these with the time, inclination and transportation required.
And whereas Garcetti instructed that unfavorable take a look at outcomes might ease nervous minds, any such reduction is simply short-term. “A negative test one day doesn’t mean that you won’t get infected the next day, or the one after that,” mentioned L.A. County’s Ghaly.
Finally, the accuracy of the self-administered mouth-swabbing assessments utilized in L.A. has not been absolutely proved. Having a well being care employee in full protecting regalia plunge a swab all the best way to the again of your nostril remains to be the formally most well-liked technique.
The reliability of the L.A. take a look at suffers should you don’t cough forcefully a number of instances to carry up probably virus-laden sputum earlier than rolling that cotton tip round in your mouth. A four-minute video I watched earlier than driving to the take a look at web site instructed me to take action, however there was no reminder once I acquired there and no staffers watched me to make I certain I did.
I feel I did it accurately, although, so I’m assured within the end result: unfavorable. But that solely means I used to be “probably not infected” on the time of the take a look at, the discover advised me. And it cautioned that I can nonetheless be uncovered to the virus at any time.
I nonetheless see numerous hand-washing and social distancing in my future.
California Healthline correspondent Anna Almendrala contributed to this report.
This KHN story first revealed on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Bernard J. Wolfson: [email protected]”>[email protected], @bjwolfson
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