SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 6: Tony Vu, of San Jose, will get examined by Helen Chou, a nurse from San Bernardino, on the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds COVID-19 testing website in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
Santa Clara County on Monday started requiring well being care suppliers to supply sufferers a COVID-19 check inside 24 hours in an try and shift extra testing accountability to hospitals and clinics who the county says haven’t been doing their half.
“The county has been carrying a disproportionate burden of testing all through the pandemic,” stated Well being Officer Dr. Sara Cody at a press convention Monday. “By a really broad margin.”
The brand new stricter guideline narrows the county’s earlier guidelines in September 2020 that required suppliers to get again to members by the tip of the next day after a request for a check.
Below the brand new order, well being care suppliers are additionally prohibited from diverting requests to different hospitals and clinics or to the county. As well as, the county’s order permits well being care hospitals and clinics to make the most of each PCR and antigen assessments — beforehand, the county solely allowed PCR testing. If a well being care supplier encounters any kind of delays, it should report points to the county inside a day — and resolve any issues inside two weeks.
In a presentation to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in early January, the well being division reported that it was offering virtually quadruple the quantity of testing that regional well being care suppliers have been conducting — primarily at their Fairgrounds website in San Jose.
Regardless of the county’s efforts, residents nonetheless discovered themselves ready as much as week for a check within the area. In response, County Counsel James Williams introduced on Jan. 14 that it was getting ready to effective well being care suppliers that didn’t present well timed testing — and created the web site scccovidconcerns.org the place county residents may subject their grievances.
Since then, the county well being division stated it has acquired “a lot of complaints from the general public” alleging well being care suppliers aren’t offering correct entry, and is now investigating.
Official warning notices have been just lately despatched to “all the giant well being care suppliers in our county,” stated Williams on Monday, and particularly named Palo Alto Medical Basis, Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Well being Care and El Camino Hospital. The county well being division later supplied the letters it had despatched to the suppliers.
Stanford Well being Care spokesperson Julie Greicius stated that the hospital “has been a number one supplier of COVID-19 testing for our surrounding counties” because the starting of the pandemic.
“Since March 2020, we have now supplied practically a million COVID assessments — practically 300,000 for Santa Clara County alone, of which practically 22,000 got since January 1, 2022,” the assertion learn. “Throughout our 7 testing websites, we're experiencing an roughly 20% no-show price and work each day to activate subsequent day appointments to make sure as expansive availability of group assessments as doable.” Greicius added that Stanford Well being Care contributed 100,000 antigen assessments to the county in the course of the peak of the omicron surge.
El Camino Hospital spokesperson Christopher Brown stated the hospital had not but acquired the Jan. 20 letter from its affiliate firm, Silicon Valley Medical Growth — however that it “has complied with all public well being orders from the Santa Clara County Public Well being Division and can proceed to take action.”
Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Karl Sonkin stated that the hospital was reviewing the county’s newest order however already has the power to supply its members testing inside 24 hours.
Palo Alto Medical Basis spokesperson Emma Dugas stated that her group “continues to make the most of all sources accessible to extend testing availability, whereas additionally addressing continued staffing challenges and elevated affected person demand for complete major and specialty care companies.” Dugas additionally stated that PAMF has doubled the testing capability inside Santa Clara County.
“For instance, we help roughly 400 assessments every weekday at our Sunnyvale location, supply a whole lot of testing appointments on weekends and carried out one-time testing clinics on holidays to help expanded testing capability for our group,” she stated.
Different counties stated they, too, have been requesting that hospitals pitch in additional on the subject of testing. Alameda County Public Well being Division spokesperson Neetu Balram stated Monday that regardless that well being care suppliers carry out the overwhelming majority of testing inside the county — in contrast to Santa Clara — Alameda has nonetheless requested that they improve their testing capabilities since county-sponsored clinics can solely subject so many requests. However Balram stated that Alameda County just isn't planning any related order to Santa Clara’s. A spokesperson for Contra Costa County Well being Providers additionally stated that they had no plans for such an order.
The Monday press convention additionally marked the two-year anniversary of the primary COVID-19 case recognized within the county, a resident who had returned from Wuhan, China.
“What a highway it’s been within the final two years,” stated Cody. “Since that point, we’ve documented over 275,000 instances of Covid. And we all know that’s an undercount. And now over 2,000 folks from our group have died of Covid. Whereas our charges from loss of life from Covid are decrease than different locations within the state and within the nation, however, it's troublesome for me and I believe for all of us to think about that we’ve misplaced so many individuals from this pandemic.”
Cody did say that the present omicron wave is on its manner down, with the county’s positivity price down from 17% at its peak to simply underneath 12%. And the case price — presently at a few weekly common of three,000 instances per day — is roughly half of what it was in mid-January.
“We're our manner down the downslope,” stated Cody. “I’d say we’re about midway down.” However within the months and years forward, stated Cody, the county ought to anticipate “peaks and valleys” of Covid instances.
In marking the anniversary, Cody additionally laid out how she thought the county’s accountability goes ahead in the long run surrounding the pandemic.
“Lots of the actions that we’ve been doing a authorities — the necessity to present mass vaccination and mass testing — (I) anticipate that can transition again to the way in which that we historically have been the place you'd go to your well being care supplier for vaccines and testing,” stated Cody. “And that our function on the county, the general public well being division, will likely be our extra conventional function which is guaranteeing entry and eradicating boundaries for people who find themselves essentially the most susceptible in our group.”
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