San Mateo County stands by Verily partnership

During a virtual press briefing Wednesday, County Manager Mike Callagy said he was unsure if concerns were based on actual data sharing or the perceived potential for sharing. Both Callagy and county spokeswoman Michelle Durand said officials would be looking into the privacy policies to ensure patient protection.

“The county of course takes our resident’s privacy and private information very seriously but also wants to make any decisions based on concerns in a methodical and justifiable way,” said Durand in an email. 

Neighboring county officials were also concerned by access disparities to the Verily testing sites which showed high-income communities were using the service with greater ease than low-income Black and Latino communities, the intended audience for the free tests. 

Callagy said targeted testing in San Mateo County has mitigated access disparities. The county has multiple methods for providing tests to residents including a stationary Verily site at the San Mateo County Event Center and a rotating Verily site that pops up in San Bruno, East Palo Alto, Half Moon Bay, Daly City and North Fair Oaks. 

Officials have also launched targeted testing through the life science company Curative, in areas where virus flare-ups are spotted, like apartment buildings and neighborhood blocks. Curative is also responsible for providing testing to minors 5 years old or older at the Event Center and is the service provider behind a county test mobile, a van test site which passed beta testing stages and has begun rotating neighborhoods. 

Officials have aimed to increase testing in the county to identify sick or potential asymptomatic carriers of the virus and to receive a testing bonus from the state that may assist a county with moving through the state’s tiered reopening framework. Any county that tests above the state’s average per 100,000 residents receives a credit toward its new positive case rate, a credit on which Callagy said the county has almost maxed out.

According to state data released Wednesday, the county has a new case rate of 5.7 cases for every 100,000 residents, adjusted to 2.9 cases with the credit. The county also has a positivity rate of 1.6% and a health equity rate, used to measure infection in underserved communities, of 3.9%. 

“Testing is really helping us out. That’s why I’m stressing it’s so important to us,” said Callagy. “This really is part of that overall strategy of making sure we wear a mask, get tested, socially distance and continue to wash our hands.”

The three metrics place the county in the state’s orange, “moderate” risk tier, which the county has been in for a week. To move into the yellow, the county’s adjusted care rate would have to fall below one case for every 100,000 residents and health equity metric below 2.2% for two consecutive weeks. 

To date, the county has tested more than 210,000 patients with 11,564 testing positive for the respiratory virus. Officials reported no new deaths this week, leaving total COVID-related fatalities at 161. Hospitalization rates have continued to trend down, currently at 20 confirmed and suspected patients, two in the ICU. 

While many metrics have continued to trend down, cases within the Latino community have remained a concern for officials as well as those within the age range of 20 to 29. 

Callagy noted a second data reporting “hiccup” was discovered by the state three weeks ago which could have potentially allowed the county to enter into a less restrictive tier sooner. Tests being administered in the county and processed in a state-contracted lab were not being communicated to the state, potentially reducing the testing credit the county would have received. 

A data display error on the county’s COVID-19 dashboard was also corrected, said Deputy Chief of Health Srija Srinivasan. During a North Fair Oaks Community Council meeting on Oct. 22, Councilman Everardo Rodriguez raised concerns positive cases were not being properly attributed to the community. 

Srinivasan noted health officials were aware cases were being attributed to larger neighboring jurisdictions including Redwood City and Menlo Park, and during the press briefing she said officials used more specific geocoding information to pinpoint where the patient actually resides. 

sierra@smdailyjournal.com 

(650) 344-5200 ext. 106