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Before Christmas In Sonoma County, as many as 680 out of 100,000 people were tested every day. This represents about 3,400 daily tests across the county. Testing volume plummeted over the holiday season, before increasing again during the first week of January. County officials reported this week that the daily testing rate fell to around 490 tests, barely above the state’s median testing rate of 425 daily tests per 100,000 population.
As part of the process to reopen the statewide pandemic, counties are receiving an adjustment based on local testing volume to the state’s median testing rate. If the local testing rate is above the state median, the county’s daily rate of virus cases – a key measure of COVID-19 transmission – is adjusted downward to account for the greater number of new infections detected.
The state assesses all counties for virus transmission benchmarks every Tuesday.
Last week, Sonoma County’s testing volume fell below the state median, so the county’s daily case rate was adjusted up from 20.8 to 21.2 percent 000 inhabitants. This week, with a detection rate barely exceeding the state median, the county’s daily case rate was adjusted from 15.3 to 13.8 cases per day per 100,000 population.
The county must lower this case, or the daily rate of new viral infections, to 7 or less per 100,000 population, in order to qualify to move forward on the state’s plan to reopen and lift more limits on most. enterprises. For example, the county’s restaurant business remains limited to alfresco and take-out meals. During the recent winter wave, only take-out service was allowed.
“Testing can help detect cases of COVID early and stop possible outbreaks,” Mase said. “And that will also help us reopen our economy.”
Identify viral mutations
As new variants of the coronavirus, both foreign and local, begin to emerge, public health experts stress the importance of testing to spot them.
Dr John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, said without proper testing, it’s difficult to follow the trajectory of the virus. But also, he said, insufficient testing is crippling the ability of public health officials to judge the role that the coronavirus variants play and will play in the pandemic.
“Without testing, we are blind,” Swartzberg said.
D’Arcy Richardson, Sonoma County director of nursing for the COVID-19 response, agreed. Testing is essential for tracking COVID-19 mutations, she said, some of which could make the virus more transmissible.
“If we don’t have people tested, then we can’t do this genotyping to look for these new strains from South Africa, UK, Brazil,” said Richardson. “It’s really important for us to know what’s going on to be able to mitigate and stop this transmission as quickly as possible when we start seeing these strains … it could make these wonderful vaccination efforts less effective.” .
Fewer tests in hospitals
County public health data shows a significant drop in testing at the local public health lab, the county’s three major hospitals, and state-contracted OptumServe public testing sites.
For example, Kaiser Permanente went from more than 5,420 coronavirus tests in the first full week of January to 2,871 in the first week of February. Public health laboratory testing has gone from a high of nearly 5,000 tests in the week starting December 6, 2020 to 2,820 in the first week of February.
Locally, OptumServe, which peaked at nearly 5,000 tests in the first week of January, fell to 2,650 tests in the first week of this month. In addition, testing at local health centers declined somewhat during this period, according to county public health data.
Providence St. Joseph Health, which operates Santa Rosa Memorial, Petaluma Valley and Healdsburg hospitals, went from 1,128 weekly viral tests to 819, during the same monthly period.
Dr Chad Krilich, chief medical officer of Providence St. Joseph Health, said COVID-19 tests include those given in emergency rooms, emergency care centers or in hospitals. The declines, he said, could be caused by an actual decrease in transmission of the coronavirus, or perhaps by people’s lack of interest in being tested.
“At the end of the day, my concern is that we don’t forget what we need to do to help us get through this phase of the pandemic,” Krilich said, citing viral testing as a critical part.
You can contact editor-in-chief Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.
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