San Mateo County Manager Mike Callagy stands beside cots in a possible COVID-19 treatment site at the San Mateo County Event Center.
After falling short of testing goals, San Mateo County officials Friday said there are enough coronavirus testing kits to give them to anyone — whether or not there are symptoms present.
“We are getting really ramped up to our goal of about 1,000 to 1,500 tests per day,” said County Manager Mike Callagy at a video press conference Friday.
In addition, county officials plan to expand testing from beyond the Verily site at the Event Center and do mobile testing beginning Monday, May 18, in other areas of the county including Daly City, the coast and East Palo Alto.
Callagy also said there looks to be a more comfortable test that won’t go as deep into the nasal passage and that might help with testing numbers.
Before, someone seeking a test had to exhibit two symptoms. Now it will be open to anyone.
“We are moving toward universal testing,” Callagy said.
The testing is also being conducted at nursing and care facilities, and about 144 of the county’s 300 homes have been reached for training and testing. If there is a positive case at a facility, everyone is tested, he said.
The county reported Friday a total of 1,397 positive cases of coronavirus, an increase of 56 from the day before, with a total of 56 deaths. There are currently 61 hospitalizations, with 14 people positive for coronavirus in the ICU. There have been a total of 16,426 tests with 1,414 positive results, for about an 8.6% rate, according to county data.
“And these are the best of times,” Callagy said, adding people are adhering to social distancing guidelines. “But we are still seeing jumps in cases. ... we are not there yet. We are simply not there. Clearly this is still a threat to the community and we have to be circumspect.”
The county loosened some restrictions this week, most notably with construction and landscaping but also with parks access, and officials report overall compliance with the new rules on distancing and other protocol that allowed for renewed use. There is also additional guidance and FAQs on summer camps on the county’s website at smcgov.org though Deputy County Counsel David Silberman said health officer Dr. Scott Morrow is sensitive to the need for summer camps as day care for parents returning to work.
Silberman also said car parades are not allowed in the county because they are not essential but also reported not hearing of any concerns or enforcement issues.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Only subscribers can view and post comments on articles.
Already a subscriber? Login Here
Join the San Mateo Daily Journal in Fiesta Hall at the Community Expo at the San Mateo County Fair! Read moreSan Mateo Community Expo at the Fair
Join New York Times bestselling author Caroline Paul for a lively discussion of her book Tou… Read moreBook Club with Author Caroline Paul
Reality Check said:
Dirk van Ulden said:
kevinasimpson said:
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Error! There was an error processing your request.
Sorry, an error occurred.
Already Subscribed!
Cancel anytime
Thank you .
Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.
Check your email for details.
Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.
An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account.
No promotional rates found.
Secure & Encrypted
Thank you.
Your gift purchase was successful! Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.
| Rate: | |
| Begins: | |
| Transaction ID: |
A receipt was sent to your email.
(6) comments
Why universal testing? How about 1 symptom of an upper respiratory infection or close contact to a test positive person. Otherwise you waste a lot of dollars. Why isn't there testing at the San Mateo County Public Health Laboratory??? Or is there? What does Dr. Scott Morrow have to say about testing? He has an MPH and MBA and an MD and 30 years experience???
If there are enough tests to test everyone, including those who have no symptoms, then our county officials need to get out and publicize that, and get the testing numbers up. As it currently stands, testing has decreased in the last week, which is pathetic. This failure is crippling us. The hospitalization rates continue to trend downward, yet nobody is willing to open things up because of the testing issue.
And Dr. Morrow needs to stop being the arbiter of what is essential or non-essential, and simply provide guidelines strictly based on health reasons. The fact that I can buy a mother's day card at Safeway but not a local bookstore is absolutely stupid. Similar social distancing can be observed in both places; in fact, all the current order does is drive more traffic to the limited places that are open. Our local health officials are getting a lot of praise for shutting things down early, but they also need to be held responsible for nonsense decisions that are unnecessarily crippling our local economy, particularly our smaller "non-essential" businesses.
SM Daily Journal is not enough. Are there enough tests for 500,000 SMC county adult residents??? Do you recommend to test asymptote people, why? Are there any false positives and negatives? How long is a negative test result valid? How often do you retest? Questions, questions, questions.
The health department could have done better job on testing, isolation, quarantining and keeping businesses open by using good prevention procedures.
Yesterday I heard a new word which can be applied to our county and health department: ineptitude. I looked up the data on smchealth.org and you JAC are right about the number and kind of tests being done. I also went to covid19ca.gov and I found only one site at the Event Center that collects specimens for RT-PCR testing and several Quest sites that do antibody tests.
The administrators project a good program e.g. want to do over 1000 tests when there are are only 100 to 500 performed per day. Also, the antibody test is essentially worthless for prevention of the spread of the virus. A waste of money, it is only about 80% reliable and positive 2-3 weeks after infection.
But my biggest disappointment is that the San Mateo County Public Health Laboratory and the Health Department aren't doing and SARS-CoV-2 tests. This epidemic would have been an excellent opportunity to upgrade testing and funding for Public Health Services. As someone else says, so SAD.
Be careful, stay safe.
Why are we hiding behind the need to test every person, every day? It's never going to happen and you know it. The photo on this article is all you need to know. An empty emergency hospital which was build, and disassembled because IT WAS NEVER NEEDED! If Scott Morrow is health poobah, riddle me this batman, if you destroy all the hospitals (which you are by bankrupting them) how does that improve the counties health?
So when is all this testing going to start? Maybe a reporter could find out??
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.