Before Sunday in Sonoma County, as many as 680 per 100,000 residents are tested every day. That’s about 3,400 daily tests nationwide. The test volume decreased during the holiday season, before increasing again during the first week of January. Provincial officials reported this week that the daily test rate has dropped to about 490 tests, just slightly above the state average test rate of 425 daily tests per 100,000 residents.
As part of the reopening process across the entire pandemic, provinces receive an adjustment based on the local test volume relative to the median test rate. If the local test rate is higher than the median of the state, the daily virus incidence rate of the country – an important measure of COVID-19 transmission – is adjusted downwards to take into account the greater number of new infections.
The state assesses each province’s criteria for transmitting viruses every Tuesday.
Last week, the test volume of Sonoma County dropped below the median of the state, so that the province’s daily business rate was adjusted upwards from 20.8 to 21.2 per 100,000 inhabitants. This week, with a test rate barely exceeding the median median, the country’s daily business rate was adjusted from 15.3 to 13.8 daily cases per 100,000 people.
The province must push the case, or the daily rate of new viral infections, to 7 or less per 100,000 residents to qualify to continue under the state reopening plan and lift more limits for most businesses. The province’s restaurant sector, for example, remains limited to outdoor food and takeaways. During the recent winter thrust, only pick-up service was allowed.
“Testing can help detect COVID cases early and stop possible outbreaks,” Mase said. “And it will also help us reopen our economy.”
Identify virus mutations
As new coronavirus variants, both abroad and at home, begin to emerge, public health experts stress the importance of testing to detect them.
Dr John Swartzberg, an expert in infectious disease at UC Berkeley, said it was difficult to detect the path of the virus without adequate testing. But also, he said, inadequate testing is hampering the ability of public health officials to assess the role that coronavirus variants play and play in the pandemic.
“Without testing, we are blind,” Swartzberg said.
D’Arcy Richardson, director of nursing in Sonoma County for COVID-19 response, agrees. Testing is essential to detect COVID-19 mutations, she said, some of which may make the virus more transmissible.
“If there are no people being tested, we can not do the genotyping to look for the new tribes from South Africa, from the United Kingdom, from Brazil,” Richardson said. “It’s very important for us to know what happens to be able to soften the transmission as quickly as possible and stop when we start to see the strains … which can make these amazing vaccination efforts less effective.”
Fewer tests at hospitals
Public health data in the county show significant declines in tests conducted at the local public health laboratory, the province’s three major hospitals and at the public test site, OptumServe.
For example, Kaiser Permanente performed more than 5,420 coronavirus tests during the first full week of January to 2,871 during the first week of February. Testing of public health laboratories dropped from the highest point of nearly 5,000 tests during the week from 6 December 2020 to 2,820 in the first week of February.
Locally, OptumServe, which peaked at nearly 5,000 tests during the first week of January, dropped to 2,650 tests during the first week of this month. According to the country’s public health data, tests at local health clinics declined somewhat during that period.
Providence St. Joseph Health, which operates the Santa Rosa Memorial, Petaluma Valley and Healdsburg hospitals, went from 1,128 virus tests to 819 during the same monthly period.
Dr. Chad Krilich, chief medical officer of Providence St. Joseph Health, said the COVID-19 tests include those administered in emergency rooms, emergency care centers or in hospitals. The declines could, according to him, be caused by an actual decline in coronavirus transmission, or possibly the lack of interest from humans to be tested.
“Ultimately, my concern is that we do not forget what we need to do to see ourselves through this phase of the pandemic,” Krilich said, citing virus testing as a critical point.
You can contact staff writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.