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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07.24.20 Paul Yoder & Karen Lange - Update on COVID-19 Testing & Spread Virus AT0 5II{ /hL5ΏЊВ ƦķğƷĻ WǒƌǤ ЊЍͲ ЋЉЋЉ CHHS Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly Currently in testing phase 1 Began doing that care within our hospitals Moving into phase 2, CA needs a renewed focus on increasing testing capacity 2,000 tests per day to identifying testing task force to increase testing, work on supply chain issues, organize testing systems, identify supplies Amazing effort by two co-chairs in this task force Efforts to organize what was meeting a 14-day average of 105,000 tests Demonstrating our ability to bring the best of CA forward Testing is a vital piece of our response to focus on taking care of patients who present symptoms, but also to understand the patterns of transmission across the state, in vulnerable communities, to suppress transmission Novel testing approach focus Pool testing o Strategy in lower prevalence populations o To scale and allow resources to go farther o Not just depending on the typical PCR tests, but also to look at different types of testing and galvanize our research and testing community to explore new test modalities Today in announcing new co-chairs, that new mission to continue building up testing capabilities We have seen increased turnaround time issues that we want to address today and focus on making sure testing is prioritized and targeted in those communities with the highest need Announce Dr. Choucair at Kaiser and Dr. Gil Chavez, CDPH, two clinical leaders who understand testing and are perfectly suited to make sure that those populations who need it the most get it in a timely way Continue to support testing in a broad way and meet needs on supply chain challenges, we need to use testing in most advantageous way Dr. Choucair Chief Health Officer at Kaiser, asked to co-chair this task force and continue to move our state testing strategy forward Building on efforts In my day to day role I lead the teams that are responsible for connecting and supporting and complementing public health efforts in our community While we have learned a ton, our recent surge in cases makes it clear that a lot more must be done to protect our communities and this requires us to continue to stay on top of emerging trends, evolving science, our work going forward must ensure that testing is available, affordable, equitable, and reliable I look forward to working with everyone Dr. Chavez I want to commend the Newsom administration for a stellar response, I have had the privilege since 2003 to lead many public health challenges, starting with SARS through H1N1, measles, Ebola, Zika, etc. Testing has always been the forefront of our response Dr. Ghaly and Dr. Choucair to adapt to the continuing challenges Honored to provide service Secretary Ghaly Thank you for joining us and agreeing to lead us in this task force We will be releasing updated guidance today on the website, outlining tiers for priority testing processing We have experienced an increase in testing time as the surges have created challenges for getting tests processed Our guidelines need to guide labs on which specimens to process first Patients in the hospital need that test result so we can cohort and provide treatment test results more immediate Ensure that we are getting results collected and resulted quickly and address those issues on transmission We have difficulty containing the disease in vulnerable areas and this could help Announcing soon emergency regulation by CDPH which will work with our health plan partners to ensure reimbursement for testing is covered, especially for essential workforce I appreciate the partnership across CA, with trade partners who help us make sure we do this in a responsible way, that patients who need care and testing can get it in their routine delivery system Our health care delivery partners not only provide testing but make sure they have PPE Statewide testing efforts with Optum serve and partners in community in brick and mortar testing and mobile testing to reach disproportionately impacted communities so we can meet the equity challenge with testing in CA and across the nation Secretary Castro-Ramirez Thank you for the opportunity as we double our efforts to make sure testing remains a priority We oversee Department of Consumer Affairs which licenses doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists 663,000 health care providers across the state As Secretary Ghaly mentioned, we must be deliberative and expand testing capacity COVID-19 affects us all Collaborating to find sustainable ways to test in our communities Moving more testing to health care provider offices to allow state testing sites to focus on individuals who are harder to reach and are higher risk Today licensing boards will reach out to these health professionals and encourage them to partner with us to expand testing capacity by providing testing in their offices Share updated guidance and regulations today, this will allow vulnerable populations to obtain appointments at state facilities Continue collaborating with professionals Health professionals have done heroic work and I know they will continue to play key role in the success of updated guidance By moving testing to these providers, we can increase access to testing and identify patients who meet the highest testing priority Health care professionals have been leading the moment and we look forward to the partnership Secretary Ghaly Thank you for your leadership I would add that one of the key points to raise is that testing as we look to the opportunity and challenges of reopening schools and bringing on campus learning and as those decisions are being made, testing for essential members needs to be available This will be a large part of reopening schools and focusing on health of teachers and staff and students We need to set up CA for success in the important mission of bringing kids back to campuses Testing task force has had an incredible effort working with health care delivery partners and academic partners, we have been able to secure and ensure we have 330 medium and high testing instruments and together the capacity is well over 200,000 tests per day and working on the supply issues and ensuring that testing is adequate throughout the community and strategically placed collection sites that we can meet the moment with testing and ensure that those most vulnerable get the tests that they need in a timely way Questions Are there plans to redirect test kits towards public labs that have that capacity? o Yes, one of our key strategies has been matchmaking and we are continuing to do that o working hard to match up o UC Davis and many other academic partners and some of medium commercial labs do numbers; I know yesterday it was mentioned cost savings with the task force, and you said shifting cost to health plan is a method, is that accurate and could you give numbers about spending on testing right now? o I think the overall cost of testing for COVID-19 is enormous, on the state and health care partners and the population o We are working on the cost of testing in a number of ways Fair cost, working to see if that cost can be reduced over time Ensuring that public health labs have access to supplies and we can use that money for other things First issue of addressing cost Second part is who pays that cost o Working with health care partners for the patients they are responsible for to be able to or need additional access so we can catch up and address need o Another important aspect about task force and cost is looking at new innovations So far PCR testing has many tests which each have a cost We are looking at different modalities that will allow us to diversify and d Multi-modal and multi-way to reduce cost of testing Follow up to announcement yesterday, so many businesses are concerned about their future so o We have continued to lean on the science, lean on transmission patterns that our local public health partners are reporting o Three things we reiterate on how decisions are made Generalized mixing outside of your household, creates opportunity for transmission so industries where that happens for long periods are restricted Focused on activities that are typically indoors moving outdoors Stressing hospital delivery system and ICU system Stay-at-home gave us time to prepare We want to make sure there is adequate capacity Focus on outdoors and we will be doing that going forward We need to control increasing transmission The cost overall of testing is around 2,000 but the Governor has mentioned $130, can you speak es and contact tracing is becoming a typical exercise? o Some of the challenges is that when you have a testing site it comes with a lot of fixed average test cost from start to finish is around $100 o MediCal has set reimbursement at that rate, when you build in collection costs it does go up and we are looking to bring that down o To question around contract tracing, we know it is much more difficult, but our partners have said that contact tracing can be an effective mode and as we build up our capacity to do that hand in hand with reducing cases, we can slow this in our communities o Contact tracing should allow higher outputs, especially for high risk communities The mes symptoms, so is that still the message that anyone can and should get tested, I thought we were up to our 10,000 contact tracers do we need more and are we building that out further? o Testing guidelines set us at priorities to focus initial testing on those who have symptoms and through testing we can make efforts to suppress disease transmission o Although we want to maintain access to testing, focusing on those who are vulnerable is beneficial to the stopping of transmission o This is all done while we are in parallel working to increase testing capacity across the state through the efforts of task force o We have hit our goal of 10,000 contact tracers, we are working to make sure the state workers are deployed so we can do the investigation and contact tracing on as many cases as possible o Local and states across the nation have recognized need for targeted testing o Contact tracing work force needs to be efficient and use it as powerful public health tool it can be I wanted to ask if there are efforts to mandate that counties report test results by industry or employer? Can you talk about how the state is looking at workplace transmissions? o As we evolve our understanding about how people are affected, as we hone in on the essential workforce, I like to add congregate workplaces where you have a large number mixing o Although we have strong guidance on this, we know that testing in those environments is key o n that industry, but we do have access through local partnerships o We certainly will look to the renewed task force to how testing and reporting is targeted o Increasingly seeing importance of family gatherings in increased number of cases o Local messaging and statewide messaging about all of that is key None of the six indicators was the ability to test every symptom and track contact cases, CA has struggled with contact tracing, why did the state set a benchmark that was open before it was met? o We saw temporary flattening and a longstanding reduction in cases, stress on our hospital system, we built up testing capacity, and we provided a strong set of science- based guidelines for industries to reopen and throughout the last many weeks we have described that our reopening would be using a tight finger on a dimmer and we were always prepared to re-institute changes o We feel we have continued to be guided by a consistent support and during this time bring transmissions down and build up our contact tracing resources so we can more effectively do this with all cases o We will get back to you on the exact time and date o Focus on ensuring health care partners are in a position to reimburse for testing and in doing so it will reinforce and support our delivery system, our clinics and hospitals, to test more and more confidently o Together with our focus on building up testing capacity plus new regulations to support health plans reimburse for testing, that will support a broader set of people access testing when they have symptoms and have been exposed so we can get timely information Close Thank you all and look forward to continuing to provide regular updates and partnering with all of you Avoid mixing, especially during this time when transmission rates are higher