California Gov. Gavin Newsom, under increasing pressure to begin rollout of covid-19 vaccine, will fly to Los Angeles on January 15 to unveil a major new vaccine site at Dodger Stadium expected to attract 12,000 people every day.
The city-run center was the largest covid test site in the U.S., administering more than 1 million tests in virtually eight months of work – and more than 10,000 per day during the recent increase. The move to a vaccine purpose, Newsom said, provides “an incredible world-class site for global-level logistics activity.”
That effort came to an end: When the city of Los Angeles completed covid tests at Dodger Stadium and closed another test site to help workers with the new vaccine center, it withdrew, at least for a while. short, about a third of what was run by the government. testing in Los Angeles County – the largest county in the country, with a population of 10 million, and one of the largest hotspots.
City, county, or state-run sites make up just over a third of LA covid tests in LA County, said Dr. Clemens Hong, who oversees the county’s test work.
Reduced test capacity may wait longer for appointments, which means that infected people may show up for a longer period of time before they learn they have the virus.
But LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said that has not happened so far. In what he cited as an example of “perfect timing,” disease rates in LA County have plummeted since Dodger Stadium moved to vaccines, and demand for tests has dropped by half to two-thirds, the mayor said Thursday. “We’re meeting the need – it’s definitely exceeding the need.”
However, he acknowledged that the change of the stadium had been a threat – one that the city took with “the vaccines prevent and cure and eventually solve this.”
Many health experts agree that prioritizing vaccination over a test is the right move.
“The best way out of our current crisis is masks, very few daily bindings and vaccines, so it makes sense to create a lot more access points for vaccines even if it means a little less testing, “said Dr. Bob Kocher, a senior at the University of Southern California ‘s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and a member of the state’ s COVID – 19 Testing Task Force.
But with the burden of covid cases still high despite the recent decline in peak levels, and mutant strains of the virus threatening to emit fuel, some senior public health officials say a test remains an equally important part of the effort to keep the pandemic at bay – and ultimately. .
And it could become more important in the coming months, as the inoculation campaign gets steamed, as the tests could be a valuable tool for assessing how good the inoculation is. vaccines work.
“It’s hard to say right now, with the number of people sick with covid, that vaccination is more important,” Hong said. “It’s hard to balance those two against each other, because we really need a lot of both.”
Balancing vaccines with tests and other covid-related activities is a major challenge for public health officials across California and the country, as these activities draw on many of the same resources – in particular the staff required for administration and record keeping.
At vaccine sites, it is essential to keep good records for the day – to – day planning of how many doses to take out of the freezer. “It has to be done right, or else you’ll scratch up when the second dose,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California-San Francisco.
Sara Bosse, Madera County director of public health, noted that counties across the state have asked Newsom for $ 400 million in the current budget year to help meet the costs of establishing vaccine sites, which including resource costs, security, data entry staff and clinicians take the sights and look for adverse effects. They are also seeking $ 280 million for covid testing and $ 440 million for communications detection and non-agency housing to protect vulnerable covid residents.
“I think a lot of counties prioritize vaccination, and based on the resources they have, they could draw from different parts of the covid response such as contact detection or testing,” Bosse said. The funding, she said, told county health officials to avoid “those difficult decisions where we have to draw from one part of the sensible response to build the next.”
Federal assistance could be on the way as well: President Joe Biden has announced plans to establish 100 federally backed vaccination centers and allocate $ 50 billion to expand trials.
In Madera County, a poor rural area of 160,000 people stretching from the Middle Valley into Sierra Nevada, the state has largely taken over the covid test, allowing the county its resources focus on vaccines, Bosse said.
The big challenge on that front, she said, is that enough health workers are trained to run the vaccine sites. The county recently heard from 85 trained clinicians who are willing to volunteer for the vaccination effort, “which is going to be a game changer for us,” Bosse said.
In Los Angeles, the city has a way of adding test capacity elsewhere and moving test up, Garcetti said. He had been considering a test site at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, “it looks like we don’t have to open it,” the mayor said.
The city, county, and state are also considering the possibility of a partnership to expand trials at Exposition Park in South LA
In San Diego County, health officials expect to face a challenge as a result of the competition for vaccinated and tested workers, and are hiring to meet the need, said Sarah Sweeney, a person for the county Health and Human Services Agency. The county has not turned test centers into vaccine sites but plans to do so following an increase in vaccine supply, she said.
San Bernardino County health officials are committed to maintaining tests at normal levels even while ramping up vaccines, said Corwin Porter, director of public health. But he acknowledged that doing both at the same time is a “struggle” because “we don’t have enough vaccines and we don’t have enough staff.” “
The county holds weekly recruitment events and works with a number of partners to find additional resources, “because we try not to pull anything out of a test or contact to find, “said Porter.
Beyond the question of resources, another major challenge facing health officials is: “There is a question of shared attention,” Hong County said at Hong Kong. “Now we have two big things to deal with – three if you include contact detection. I think we need to think about our strategy.”
Once the general population has received the vaccine, which could take several months, the size of testing is likely to fall sharply, Rutherford told UCSF.
“I don’t see hundreds of thousands of tests every day anymore when we get up well on vaccines,” he said. “You test thousands of people to find tens of cases.”
In the meantime, LA County is likely to post questions on their test recruitment website asking people about their vaccine status, Hong said. “That way we can monitor what’s going on in people who are getting the vaccine.”
Continued outbreaks of covid may require more testing, especially in poorer color communities, which are hit harder by the pandemic – and where it is difficult to detect. the vaccine is more widespread, Hong said. “So the main idea is that tests don’t go away.”
This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an independent editorial service from the California Health Care Foundation.
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