Virus testing shortages and delays help fuel surge

Speaker 1: (00:00)

Very long lines and hours of waiting at COVID 19 testing centers have prompted the state to bring in help from the California national guard and changed San Diego county's testing guidance county, public health officer Dr. Wilma Wooton is now urging people to get tested only as necessary defined as only when you have of symptoms. State testing sites from Chula Vista to Oceanside are getting help from some national guard medical personnel. Meanwhile, doctors are concerned that symptomatic and asymptomatic people waiting together in long lines for COVID tests could actually be helping to spread the disease. Joining me is San Diego union Tribune, healthcare reporter, Paul Sissen and Paul welcome.

Speaker 2: (00:43)

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: (00:45)

How long have the COVID test lines been around the county in recent days? How long have people been on those lines?

Speaker 2: (00:51)

Oh gosh. You know, we don't have a perfect figure for every single site, but the ones that we visited and others have visited and people have been telling us about it, you know, it's not uncommon to, for hours to get tested. Uh, you know, I had some people, uh, say that they, they went to private sites, uh, last week where they waited in their cars for four straight hours before their samples were taken. So it's a long haul out there

Speaker 1: (01:12)

For sure. And people on those lines are getting tested for a variety of different reasons, not just because they think they might be sick. Isn't that right? If you

Speaker 2: (01:21)

Go through and you talk to people who are waiting in these lines, you just find a really wide range of different, uh, reasons why they're there. You know, obviously there are some who have symptoms and wanna find out what's causing those symptoms, but then you run into other people who say, you know, I, I don't have any symptoms and I'm not aware that I've been exposed, but my boss told me to get tested before I come back to work. So I'm out here, uh, just trying to, you know, get a negative so I can do my job. Uh, you know, we ended some folks, uh, in San Marcos last week who were in that boat and they worked in retail. So it seems like, uh, you know, it's a, it's a wide range of different reasons. Now, the

Speaker 1: (01:53)

Concern, as I understand it is that sick people online could pose a risk to people who are just there because they need a test for work. Is that

Speaker 2: (02:01)

It, this was brought up up by, uh, Dr. Schooly at U C S D uh, when I chatted with him on Friday, I think he has a point there in terms of, you know, you don't really wanna be in close proximity with people who are infected, even if everybody is wearing masks for, uh, for too long, standing next to somebody like that for, for four hours or two hours or three hours or one hour, that's probably not super ideal. The other hand, a lot of these lines are outside and we know that there's much less risk when you are outside. On the other other hand, we know that this, uh, Amron variant is, uh, highly, highly transmissible, more so than others that came before it. So I guess what the, what the infectious disease folks are saying is, you know, why take the chance?

Speaker 1: (02:41)

One are San Diego county health officials saying now about who should get tested.

Speaker 2: (02:46)

They seem to be narrowing it down a bit. The message as we were coming into this current surge was, you know, everybody should get tested whenever they want to, and whenever they need to. And, and that's, uh, that's a great thing to be able to do. It's great if somebody is going out to a social function of some kind, you know, and, and they think they might have been exposed, or they just wanna be careful before visiting a, a loved run. Who's, uh, very vulnerable to just take a, take a home test or, or go to a testing center and, and get a result and confirm that their social interaction is not going to bring coronavirus along with it. It just seems like that kind kind of testing. It seems like the county is straying away from that a little bit at this point. And focusing more in, on people either who have symptoms or who have pretty severe symptoms. And it, it seems to me though, they haven't really explained why they're doing this. Uh, it seems that the overall problem is just a lack of testing in general, available tests and, and so many long lines at to testing centers. So much demand.

Speaker 1: (03:40)

How is the national guard helping out at San Diego COVID testing centers?

Speaker 2: (03:44)

We were able to get ahold of, uh, gentlemen with the, uh, national guard over the weekend. He indicated that it's generally helping around the edges. Yeah. As you know, the national guard is made up of a lot of folks, men and women who have a lot of different skills. And so they were saying, you know, it's tailored by site. So in some cases they might have a medic there who's helping to do, uh, swabs and, and taking samples for testing. Uh, others might be helping to run traffic and parking lots and, and keep things from clogging up. As people are pulling in, in their vehicles, uh, others might be helping to manage long lines and make sure that people aren't getting frustrated in and trying to cut the lines or what have you. Uh, and then others might be working kind of behind the scenes with some of the lab operations and, uh, logistics. Once they take these samples at a testing site, often they'll need to transport them elsewhere for the actual testing to be conducted. So there's a lot of logistics behind the scenes that people don't see that, that are important, uh, as well.

Speaker 1: (04:37)

And Paul are the numbers still in the thousands for people to testing positive for COVID every day in San Diego?

Speaker 2: (04:43)

Uh, yes, they absolutely are. Uh, the county doesn't give us, uh, new data updates over the weekend, so we should get a fresh set of numbers later today. But their last, uh, report Friday had 5,922 new cases from the previous day that they had been, uh, reported. And that is still higher than any thing we saw last winter. And that's still over a thousand more than we saw last this time, last winter, when, when that was the record and

Speaker 1: (05:08)

In your article in the UT today, it seems that some doctors are urging people to consider going back into lockdown. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2: (05:17)

Yeah, I mean, you know, they look at all of this, uh, social interaction that happened over the holidays. Uh, as we talked before, you know, it was just very different this year. A, a lot of locations were open that weren't open last year, bars and restaurants and indoor dining and lots of different performances and large gatherings, uh, football games, uh, you know, you name it, it was open. And so they see the, the spike in positive cases. That's come after all of that, uh, holiday revel and, and, and kind of wonder if we can continue that kind of, uh, level of activity if we want this thing to simmer down. You know, I don't think anybody's really suggesting that it's even possible to have the wide shutdowns that we had in 2020 and, and early 2021. I think, think a lot of people feel that that ship has really sailed, that people really wouldn't comply. So, so it feels like they're being a little more nuanced and saying, you know, we all in our own, uh, behaviors need to kind of ratchet back on some of this contact that we've been having over the holidays and let this thing simmer down, kind of as a, a collective effort. That's not really a formal government effort, but just into visuals making, uh, you know, a tighter set of choices as, as we get into the new new year here and try to try to get this case right down. I've

Speaker 1: (06:24)

Been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, healthcare reporter, Paul Sissen, Paul. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.