Sonoma County’s drive-thru testing boosts virus tracking effort, with more planned in coming weeks

Sonoma County tested 450 health care workers for the coronavirus in Santa Rosa over the weekend, marking the debut of its new drive-thru program with the highest two-day tally of county tests since the start of the crisis, and lending momentum to a virus tracking effort that health officials say will be key to one day ending the shutdown.

Still, the appointment-only test operation, outside the county health lab on its Chanate Road campus, needs more room and workers to expand to meet the county’s goal of 800 daily surveillance tests, public health officials said Sunday.

The program began with health care workers, but is set to expand to include first responders with virus symptoms; people age 65 and older with underlying health conditions with or without symptoms, and eventually, a wider swath of residents with symptoms.

Officials view it as an crucial step to expose the extent and spread of the virus in the community, a benchmark that they said will be needed to decide how and when to loosen the county’s shelter order.

“It’s critical that we get a better understanding of how (COVID-19) is moving through our county,” Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Susan Gorin said Sunday. “If we’re trying to get a sense of comfort that we’re doing the right thing in opening up the community…we have to do a lot more testing in the county to get to that comfort level.”

Already, Sonoma County leaders are eyeing adjustments to park closures and a shelter-in-place order that would allow more local flexibility while conforming the county’s measures with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s indefinite shelter-place-order. Lifting that order, the governor has said, will require meeting statewide mileposts in the coming weeks, including greater testing and an enhanced ability to trace contacts and stymie any spread.

The pandemic continues to ravage the world, with confirmed COVID-19 infections reaching 2.9 million Sunday, including 965,000-plus people in the United States.

Sonoma County reported 220 confirmed cases Sunday, up by two, while California reported 42,974 cases and 979 deaths. Sonoma County’s death toll continues to stand at two, though local authorities said last week they would order postmortem tests on residents who died earlier this year in the wake of revelations out of Santa Clara County that the first known U.S. coronavirus death came in early February, weeks before the virus was detected in the region.

County officials are also expecting by Monday new projections revising the timing and caseload for a near-term peak of local COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. The previous model, which foresaw up to 1,500 hospitalized patients by late May or early June, did not fully factor in the shutdown and its affect on the virus’s spread, officials said.

“We need to base our decisions on data,” Gorin said. “We’re looking at reopening some businesses, and the parks, then reviewing over the next week or two how that increases the (COVID) cases - or not, hopefully not. Then we can contemplate opening more businesses and opening the parks more fully.”

Dr. Sundari Mase, the county’s health officer, is widely expected to approve revisions this week that would restore some public access to local parks and allow a wider range of housing construction and real estate transactions to resume. The majority of restrictions will remain in place.

Sunday afternoon, at the county’s health lab in northeast Santa Rosa, two of the people working to gather the all-important testing samples took some time to rest after a pair of long, hot days that were even more sweltering under layers of personal protective equipment, or PPE.

Julianne Ballard, a supervising public health nurse looked on as Dr. Mary Miller, director of nursing services, tended to her own sunburn with some aloe vera. Ballard confessed to being tired. But the new testing regimen, and what it means for the county kept spirits high.

“For the workers, they were just sweltering in their PPE, but everybody was happy to be there,” Ballard said. “The people who drove through…we didn’t meet one unhappy person at all.”

Ballard said the testing began with health care workers, with 240 people on Saturday and 220 on Sunday.

Ten of those tested did not meet those criteria but were able to get tests Saturday because of miscommunication, she said.

Ballard said county officials are in negotiations with an unnamed health care provider to secure another drive-through testing site to ramp up capacity.

Additionally, the state will open two testing sites in Sonoma County capable of conducting 264 daily tests combined. The sites are set to open May 4, and will be run by a private contractor, according to an internal email provided Sunday.

Health officials had to call and cancel some other appointments over the weekend, but they would be rebooked, Ballard said, as the county moves through its list of priorities, which will next shift to first responders after more capacity is added.

Ballard said EMS teams are also being trained to help with testing at the Chanate site, freeing up her coronavirus surveillance team for more testing at nursing homes and the county jail.