California seeks to test 60,000-80,000 a day for coronavirus — but when can we get there?

To loosen the state’s lockdown orders, California will have to ramp up testing for the COVID-19 virus by four to five times over its current pace, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, but reaching 60,000 to 80,000 tests a day from 16,000 is a daunting task.

Newsom’s announcement came as governors across the country are facing pressure to ease devastating stay-home orders that have shut schools and businesses and hammered the economy while also trying to avoid a resurgence of new cases that could overwhelm hospitals. But the new plan still may not provide tests for anybody who wants one — and it fails to address the question on every Californian’s mind: When can we go back to normal?

“I wish I could provide a specific date and say we’ll turn on a light switch and go back to normalcy,” Newsom said, but added that testing for COVID-19 and tracing people who have come in contact with the infected “will be foundational” to reopening the Golden State.

How long will it take California to reach 60,000 to 80,000 tests a day? That’s also a question the governor couldn’t answer with specifics. The state, which was testing an average of 2,000 a day in March, already exceeded its goal of 10,000 a day by April 14 and is expected to meet its next goal of 25,000 a day by the end of the month.

Even at 80,000 tests a day, it would take 500 days — until Sept. 4, 2021 — to test all 40 million Californians. But Newsom said that isn’t the plan. Instead, the immediate goal is to ensure that at least those who are symptomatic or high risk can be tested.

Federal testing guidelines have called for prioritizing testing for hospitalized patients and symptomatic health care workers or vulnerable people — the elderly and infirm. With more testing available, California added over the weekend people without symptoms who work in health care or live or work in high-risk settings.

It’s also possible the state, which has done a total 465,000 tests so far, could exceed its goal. Newsom said California, with more than 600 testing sites, has the capacity “if 100 percent were full throttle and everybody was being tested and all supply chains are intact” to conduct about 95,000 tests a day. He set his goal below that out of ongoing concern about supplies needed to conduct and process tests.

Newsom said surveys of testing labs found that more than half cited a shortage of nasal swabs needed to retrieve samples as their biggest obstacle. He said he was encouraged by a phone call with President Donald Trump earlier in the day who promised to deliver 100,000 swabs this week and 250,000 next week.

“Eighty thousand is within the range we think we can achieve,” Newsom said.

The governor said California will be opening up 86 new testing sites throughout the state, with a focus on rural and poorer areas he said have been “testing deserts.” And Kaiser Permanente has started construction on a $14 million, 7,700 square-foot laboratory in Berkeley that will be capable of processing 70,000 Covid-19 tests a week when it opens around June 1. While most Californians with insurance should contact their doctors about getting tested, there are also a variety of drive-up sites that offer testing in the Bay Area and throughout the state.

The state reported its most COVID-19 deaths ever Wednesday, with California counties confirming 116 new fatalities. That brought the total count to 1,432 deaths, according to data compiled by this news organization. There were also 1,845 new infections reported, bringing the total case count to 37,647. The state’s hospitalizations and intensive care needs for those sickened with the respiratory illness have continued to plateau, and he announced the first small step forward in easing his stay-home order — resuming nonemergency surgeries.

Elective surgeries had been halted throughout the state to free up medical resources for treating coronavirus patients, but the governor said the state has had enough success “flattening the curve” that it’s now in a position to resume things such as heart operations or tumor removal. Purely cosmetic procedures are still on hold.

“The stay-at-home order as it currently is drafted is working,” Newsom said. “Continue to practice physical distancing, and we will be making more announcements sooner than we otherwise would. If we pull back too soon, those announcements will not be forthcoming.”

Experts agree more coronavirus testing to confirm infections is key to corralling the contagion and easing the stay-home orders. It is not only first among Newsom’s six conditions but also a key part of the White House’s three-phase guidelines for states on reopening.

In New York, the state hardest hit by the outbreak, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week his administration plans to double its testing capabilities, from a current average of 20,000 to 40,000 a day. But he made it clear that goal may be a stretch.

“If you took every machine we had and they had all the supplies they needed from the national manufacturers and you ran that machine seven days a week, 24 hours a day, how many tests could you do? About 40,000,” Cuomo said in his Wednesday news briefing. “Might be a little unrealistic. But I’d rather set the bar high and try to get there and then whatever we get is what we get.”

New York has led the country in testing and has one of the highest rates of testing per capita among the states. California conducted the second-most tests but with a population roughly twice New York’s, the Golden State’s testing per capita is among the lowest among the states, a recent analysis found.

The U.S. is averaging about 150,000 COVID-19 tests a day now. Harvard researchers have indicated 500,000 to 700,000 tests a day are needed. Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has said that the country will need to initially conduct up to 3 million tests a week — about 429,000 a day — to reopen.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Wednesday that California’s goal was based on assumptions about the number of new cases the state will see each day as lockdowns ease, the needs for testing health care workers and the need to test an average of 10 close personal contacts for each of the newly infected.

Newsom also said the state plans to assemble a force of 10,000 workers to help trace and monitor close contacts of the newly infected, perhaps with help from smartphone applications his administration is reviewing.

Newsom also said the state expects to be able to conduct 1.5 million blood tests for antibodies at 130 sites statewide that can determine if a person has had the disease already. But he added that while that is helpful in understanding the outbreak, it is not key to managing it and easing the stay-home order.

Experts concede that although the threat of a widespread deadly pandemic has loomed for decades, government and health officials at all levels didn’t fully grasp the logistical problems that have emerged to hinder that response. Related Articles Raiders coach Jon Gruden reveals he had coronavirus

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“Bear in mind, this is a hundred-year pandemic, this is an unusual, transformative-type thing we’re facing here,” J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., research organization. “We’re much more accustomed to natural disasters that are more localized or regionalized, where you can concentrate your response. … I don’t think anybody imagined this.”

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