University of California hospitals launch in-house coronavirus testing as US shortage continues
Buoyed by early success treating coronavirus patients – and a fear that more are on the way – five University of California medical centers, including the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, are launching their own in-house testing for coronavirus, making the health system one of the first in the country to do so.
UC Davis hospital officials said in a press statement Wednesday they have now successfully treated three of the first patients in the country to get the illness and intend to use what they have learned to help ease the national testing burden by doing their own work in-house.
UC Davis Medical Center and others in the UC system are among a handful of hospitals around the country who are rushing to create in-house testing procedures. A dearth of federal government test kits has hampered the country’s efforts to determine the spread of the disease and its efforts to slow that spread.
The University of California’s five medical centers are now using tests or in the process of obtaining approvals to administer the tests, UC Health Executive Vice President Carrie Byington told lawmakers Wednesday.
She said labs at UC San Francisco, UCLA and UC San Diego as of Tuesday are “offering in-house COVID-19 tests” that can be turned around within 24 hours.
UC Davis and Irvine are the next hospitals expected to offer in-house coronavirus tests, she said. “We are hoping this will aid the state in getting more people tested.”
Coronavirus fears are causing a cascade in the last two days of school districts, sports teams, states and local governments shutting down group events.
The UC Davis hospital also divulged that none of its healthcare workers has contracted the virus from treating the three patients, one of whom was an older woman from Solano County who came down with one of the first community-spread cases, meaning she did not get it from someone returning from foreign travel.
That woman, who came to the UC Davis facility on Stockton Boulevard two weeks ago in critical condition, remains in the hospital, but in improved shape, the hospital said. Two other patients have recovered and been sent home, where they are in quarantine.
“Two weeks ago today, UC Davis Health made national news when we discovered our providers were treating the first apparent case of COVID-19 acquired by community spread of the disease. We have learned much about COVID-19 since then, and what we have learned is helping to inform how the nation is responding to this outbreak,” the institution said in its press statement.
“We have seen three COVID-19 patients during the past two weeks, and none of our providers has contracted the disease, which shows current levels of protection for patients and providers is working well.”
Hospital officials said the virus, which appears to be a droplet-spread infectious disease, not an airborne-transmissible disease, is contagious “and requires a higher level of protection for medical staff. Evidence gathered from multiple academic medical centers in the U.S., including here at UC Davis Health, supports the CDC’s move from airborne precautions to droplet precautions.”
While stressing the serious nature of the virus outbreak, hospital officials on Wednesday pointed out that so far only four people in California have died of the virus, after several weeks, whereas about 100 people die per month from flu during the flu season.
Sacramento County and Placer County each have had one death.
“For context, more than 500 Californians have died from the flu since September of 2019 – that’s almost 100 people per month, and this year’s flu season is not over yet. For comparison, three people in California have died of COVID-19.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 1:48 PM with the headline "University of California hospitals launch in-house coronavirus testing as US shortage continues."