California can’t keep up with demand for coronavirus tests. Will Congress help?
The next coronavirus relief bill from Congress is expected to have billions of dollars for COVID-19 testing, but competing plans from Republicans and Democrats are far apart on how much money to provide.
The outcome matters in California, where medical labs can’t keep up with demand for coronavirus tests and patients are often waiting days for results. Contact tracing teams have been overwhelmed in some areas due to staffing shortages.
Republicans are offering $16 billion for testing and contact tracing money to give to states as part of a $1 trillion coronavirus aid bill.
Democrats want $75 billion in additional testing money — nearly five times as much — in their $3 trillion package.
Both sides are negotiating a final package to send to President Donald Trump in coming weeks, though the timing on passage is unclear.
California has turned to contractors to bolster testing in the state. Verily Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has charged California $19.7 million for testing through a pact that started in March. California is still in contract with Verily through the end of August for contracts not to exceed $23.7 million in additional costs.
California also has a $100 million testing contract with health services company OptumServe through its subsidiary Logistics Health.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said in a press conference Monday night that Republicans are not committing to testing funding during negotiations.
“We want to open our economy, open our schools, testing, testing, testing, tracing, tracking, testing, tracking, treating, separation and the rest,” Pelosi said. “It takes money and it takes equipment, which we don’t have and they have not made a commitment to. Denial, delay, distortion. That’s their game up until now.”
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, declined to comment. Other Senate Republicans have already voiced some problems they have with the bill, such as $1.75 billion for a new FBI building that the White House requested.
A previous law passed in March to provide funding for testing gave $25 billion to states. The Trump administration still has $9 billion left from that fund that hasn’t been given out.
“Some California officials have said they worry that contact tracing is much less effective while testing labs are so far behind. Scientists believe people can be have the virus for about two weeks before they show symptoms.
“The effect of contact tracing is being able to get to people quickly. If not, those are opportunities lost for doing intervention,” said Dr. Olivia Kasirye, Sacramento County health officer. “If it is beyond the 14 days, there is no point.”
Health officials and leaders like Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, have said testing and contact tracing are the keys to keeping numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections low until a successful vaccine surfaces.
Harris said in a statement to McClatchy Tuesday that “we need” the $75 billion for testing provided by House Democrats’ bill.
“Until we have a vaccine, improving our testing capacity must remain a primary focus,” Feinstein told McClatchy in a statement. “Tests must be widely available and results returned quickly so contact tracing can contain the spread of the coronavirus. Funding for testing in the next coronavirus relief bill should be based on what health experts and the science say we need, not politics.”
Sacramento Bee reporter Sophia Bollag contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 3:01 PM with the headline "California can’t keep up with demand for coronavirus tests. Will Congress help?."
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