Speaker 1: It's Tuesday. I'm oscar A Mirrors from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. California
Speaker 1: is largely closing again amid a rizing coronavirus cases. Governor
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has ordered once again the closure of indoor
Speaker 1: dining and limits on gyms, churches, hair salons and other businesses.
Speaker 1: And as cases go up, testing continues to be a
Speaker 1: problem to get under control. From the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the state fell behind and has been struggling
Speaker 1: to keep up. There was problems with current infrastructure, supply shortages,
Speaker 1: and it led to difficulties in contact tracing too. Emily
Speaker 1: bomb Gardner, reporter for The l A Times, joins us
Speaker 1: for California's failure at mass testing. Thanks for joining us, Emily,
Speaker 1: Thank you glad to be here. As we continue to
Speaker 1: progress our way through the coronavirus pandemic, states have reopened,
Speaker 1: cases are surging. It seems like we're taking a step
Speaker 1: back in a lot of ways. California is one of
Speaker 1: those state that is seeing a huge surge in cases.
Speaker 1: You know, Florida, Arizona, Texas, those are all other ones,
Speaker 1: but California is largely closing again amid the spike in
Speaker 1: coronavirus cases. The governor, Gavin Newsom has announced new statewide restrictions. Basically,
Speaker 1: indoor operations need to close. This is indoor dining and bars,
Speaker 1: family entertainment, zoos and museums. Also, gym's are gonna have
Speaker 1: to close again, churches, hair salon's, malls, other businesses. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is a complete step back on this. And this
Speaker 1: is just one month after we reopened everything on June twelve,
Speaker 1: So it's really tough there. And there's so many things
Speaker 1: in this people going out and whatnot. But one thing
Speaker 1: that we always come back to is testing and how
Speaker 1: difficult testing has been. We've seen longer lines for testing,
Speaker 1: longer waits for results again. But Emily, you wrote an
Speaker 1: article about how California failed the mass coronavirus testing. There
Speaker 1: was an early lag. We were playing from behind and
Speaker 1: we were never able to really catch up. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that, Emily. So what are looking
Speaker 1: at today was born from many mistakes leading up to
Speaker 1: this moment. I think it's pretty easy to look back
Speaker 1: over the past month and attribute what we're seeing right
Speaker 1: now to the reopenings. But in reality, the issues stem
Speaker 1: from much further back in the early stages of this.
Speaker 1: For example, it was federal restrictions that really limited California's
Speaker 1: ability to get a handle on this. It was federal
Speaker 1: restrictions on who could be tested the really narrow criteria
Speaker 1: back in January and February, and that trickled over the
Speaker 1: last several months through several sort of cascading steps that
Speaker 1: led for this to get out of control. And I
Speaker 1: just want to put into context for people the reason
Speaker 1: that testing is so important. It's not just an individual
Speaker 1: test result that tells you whether you should isolate. The
Speaker 1: reason it's so important for containing the outbreak is for
Speaker 1: contact tracing, something you've probably heard lots about, but right now,
Speaker 1: if the testing does not scale up, it's simply impossible
Speaker 1: to identify which people are continuing to spread the virus.
Speaker 1: So testing is really the central cornerstone for solving a
Speaker 1: iceis like this. You know there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that question, oh, well, it only has figures that point
Speaker 1: in time, and that's true, but as you mentioned, you
Speaker 1: have to nail it right when it's happening, so you
Speaker 1: can do that contact tracing tell the proper people to
Speaker 1: start isolating and hopefully limit a big spread. You actually
Speaker 1: started your story off with a brief example of what happened.
Speaker 1: The Times identified a third flight that was coming into
Speaker 1: l a X, where public health officials really didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: They didn't alert travelers that they were at risk for infection.
Speaker 1: This was, you know, in the early stages of all this,
Speaker 1: and you tell about the husband of the family returned
Speaker 1: from China. The family started getting sick, but they didn't
Speaker 1: get tested. They moved down into their community. Then people
Speaker 1: at their school, their kids school, got sick, and it
Speaker 1: became this cluster right there, and they couldn't do it
Speaker 1: because the family couldn't get tested. This is a family
Speaker 1: who even now will tell you they don't know whether
Speaker 1: coronavirus is what they were infected with. This was in
Speaker 1: the early stages when the respiratory symptoms were not distinguishable
Speaker 1: from the flu, and they don't know. But they tried
Speaker 1: harder than most families I can imagine, trying to get
Speaker 1: a test, to be responsible and to stay away from
Speaker 1: the community. In fact, they were self isolating by choice
Speaker 1: in their home before this was ever something that officials
Speaker 1: asked them to do. So just as to show you
Speaker 1: that members of the public were eager to prevent this
Speaker 1: from spreading and to participate in whatever way they could,
Speaker 1: But it was a lack of direction and the last
Speaker 1: coordination from the top, both at the federal level and
Speaker 1: also at the state level, that allowed this to sort
Speaker 1: of spiral to a point where people lost the ability
Speaker 1: to sort of take autonomy over over decisions and keep
Speaker 1: this virus from spreading. So as in the early stages
Speaker 1: of this, the virus was starting to spread, we really
Speaker 1: didn't get a handle on the true number of it.
Speaker 1: And then what happened with the labs because this is
Speaker 1: another critical pardon We heard a lot of this story
Speaker 1: in the past, but you actually lay out the chronology
Speaker 1: this so well. That's why I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about this. The labs were facing shortages of supplies.
Speaker 1: The demand was increasing. It's something that's happening right now
Speaker 1: as we speak again, So tell us how that was going.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of different infrastructures you want to take
Speaker 1: note of here. The first is public health laboratories. Those
Speaker 1: are the government funded laboratories across the country and across
Speaker 1: the state that are funded by the government. That's important
Speaker 1: because those specific laboratories have been crippled for years. One
Speaker 1: fourth of all of California's public health laboratories have closed
Speaker 1: in the last two decades. So we're talking about laboratories
Speaker 1: who had zero money, very thin staff, totally unprepared for
Speaker 1: something such as a pandemic or really any type of
Speaker 1: biological emergency. They've been pleading for funding for a long time,
Speaker 1: but until a crisis occurs, it's hard to convince officials
Speaker 1: that this is something that they need to be preparing
Speaker 1: for financially. That's one side of the story. Of course,
Speaker 1: as you know, right from the White House down, they
Speaker 1: did acquire lots of support and help from commercial laboratories
Speaker 1: such as QUEST and Lab Corps around early March, which
Speaker 1: many people hoped would be a major turning point, and
Speaker 1: in some ways it was because testing was expanded drastically,
Speaker 1: but the limitation that was placed on commercial companies was
Speaker 1: just a physical one. There's only so much supply across
Speaker 1: the world, and many many countries were demanding the exact
Speaker 1: same things from the supply chain at the exact same time,
Speaker 1: so specific types of plastics, specific supply carrier fluids, three agents.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you heard lots about chemical re agents. So
Speaker 1: the whole world is demanding something that there's a physically
Speaker 1: limited amount of, and so no money can really buy
Speaker 1: a solution to that problem. We were hearing about supply
Speaker 1: shortages all across the board. Testing obviously was one personal
Speaker 1: protective equipment. Everybody was requiring the same materials, and you
Speaker 1: know it was just creating that increased shortage there. And
Speaker 1: you just continue a little bit more on the expanded
Speaker 1: testing you mentioned in here. States such as New York
Speaker 1: expanded a lot of testing the screen every nursing home
Speaker 1: patient and California didn't have that means, and we know
Speaker 1: that about half of the deaths in California are from
Speaker 1: those facilities. So that's another unfortunate effect of this, but
Speaker 1: also why it's so important. If we were able to
Speaker 1: identify and isolate those people, then maybe so many deaths
Speaker 1: wouldn't have occurred. This is where you see a fork
Speaker 1: in the road between places like New York City and
Speaker 1: places like California. New York City was able to do
Speaker 1: things like that to really overcome barriers in specific hotspots
Speaker 1: or clusters. They would put cluster busters, as they're called.
Speaker 1: These investigators who zero in on specific super spreaders and
Speaker 1: try to really just create a ring around them to
Speaker 1: isolate the infections from spreading outside of it. That was
Speaker 1: not done effectively in California, and there's a whole variety
Speaker 1: of reasons for that. It would be very difficult and
Speaker 1: perhaps unfair to try to pin it on one specific reason.
Speaker 1: But the outcome of that is that California was unable
Speaker 1: to focus in on testing specifically in these facilities where
Speaker 1: the vast majority of deaths were occurring. And that was
Speaker 1: the project that they agreed to do. Even l a
Speaker 1: county specifically agreed to test every staff member and every
Speaker 1: resident in these guild nursing facilities, and even as of
Speaker 1: early June, they had not completed that project. So lots
Speaker 1: of sluggishness marking the California process. Sluggishness is a great word. Here.
Speaker 1: The backlog. Now, this is the next part of it.
Speaker 1: And one of the people who spoke to I laughed
Speaker 1: because it's such a funny memory. But in this case
Speaker 1: it's not so funny obviously. But they said that this
Speaker 1: deluge of specimens, this backlog resembled that accelerating conveyor belt
Speaker 1: of confections on the classic chocolate factory episode of I
Speaker 1: Love Lucy. Just everything backing up and not being able
Speaker 1: to catch up. That's kind of what happened after that.
Speaker 1: That's what lab workers and lab officials describe it as
Speaker 1: looking like the one that that's the specific woman that
Speaker 1: you're speaking about is a very high ranking lab representative
Speaker 1: for a hospital system, and she piled those samples into
Speaker 1: her own car and drove it to another laboratory to
Speaker 1: try to get them tested. So this is sort of
Speaker 1: a prime example of the way that the bureaucracy sort
Speaker 1: of broke down the system that was planned c that
Speaker 1: was already two things that had failed her to the
Speaker 1: point where she had to drive the samples herself. Personally,
Speaker 1: I mean, good for her for wanting to get those
Speaker 1: things done, but man, that is that is really tough there.
Speaker 1: So this leads us all back to contact tracing and
Speaker 1: why that's so important. Everything's backed up, we're not identifying
Speaker 1: fresh cases, the new cases that are critical because those
Speaker 1: people maybe don't know they're still owed in the community
Speaker 1: infecting others. And contact tracing. I mean, right now we
Speaker 1: have one thousand, seven hundred contact tracers for more than
Speaker 1: ten million residents. That's nowhere near enough. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you were to compare this to what we saw in
Speaker 1: the beginning when you had dozens of contact tracers, to
Speaker 1: a case that would never be replicated right now, certainly,
Speaker 1: but you do hope that your staff is strong enough
Speaker 1: and broad enough that you're able to very quickly react
Speaker 1: to cases. I mentioned this earlier, but I want to
Speaker 1: mention it again now. The speed of testing impacts contact
Speaker 1: tracers greatly, because even Curative Curative is an example of
Speaker 1: a very strong, popular company, the tech startup from San
Speaker 1: Francisco that did a great great deal of testing in
Speaker 1: l A County. L A County abandoned using that company,
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons that I was told by
Speaker 1: a spokesperson for the county was the lag and test results.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you if you have a lag
Speaker 1: such as forty eight hours, you've lost the window in
Speaker 1: which you can go identify the cases contact before they
Speaker 1: continue to spread. So we're talking about a very quick
Speaker 1: turner on that you need in test results in order
Speaker 1: to adequately carry out your contact tracing with your strong
Speaker 1: and large staff and enforcement. We know is another hurdle there.
Speaker 1: So I want to get to where we are now
Speaker 1: we're still lagging behind testing. We've seen the stories of
Speaker 1: longer lines, longer wait times. Obviously after the holidays things
Speaker 1: kind of started blowing up, but once again we have
Speaker 1: the shortages of swabs, the reagents, the materials we need,
Speaker 1: and then also they're starting to scale back certain testing
Speaker 1: and certain areas again and imposing stricter guidelines for that.
Speaker 1: Some of that is the communication failure. Some of the
Speaker 1: test sites you're referring to are the underutilized sites. So
Speaker 1: in some areas of the state, specifically rural areas and
Speaker 1: underserved inter city areas, we're a major focus for Governor
Speaker 1: Nuisance's plan for rolling out testing, for expanding testing to
Speaker 1: communities where the virus wasn't being detected very quickly in
Speaker 1: the early days, and you know, of course that kind
Speaker 1: of work relies on good public communication. In some of
Speaker 1: those regions, there was questions over whether getting tested would
Speaker 1: be an issue regarding your immigration status, questions regarding whether
Speaker 1: it would be costly if you didn't have insurance, and
Speaker 1: of course coronavirus testing is free across the state, and
Speaker 1: officials do claim that regardless of your immigration status, they
Speaker 1: want you to get tested. That there won't be any
Speaker 1: negative consequences for you for doing so, but that's not
Speaker 1: being communicated well enough to the public, at least that's
Speaker 1: what the numbers suggests. Because of these locations, testing is
Speaker 1: still low, the demand is low, and so the state
Speaker 1: has decided to go ahead and roll back those locations
Speaker 1: and use the funding and the support elsewhere. California is
Speaker 1: just one state. This is the story that we're telling here,
Speaker 1: but this is kind of a problem that's been dogging
Speaker 1: other states as well, probably different circumstances, but still the
Speaker 1: overall importance of testing is so high and not everybody
Speaker 1: has been able to get it right. So I mean,
Speaker 1: it's something that really needs to be looked closer at.
Speaker 1: And obviously the same thing testing and contact tracing needs
Speaker 1: to be improved across the board. Emily bomb Gardner, medical
Speaker 1: reporter at the l A Times, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Seeing you very much, him Oscar Ramirez,
Speaker 1: and this has been reopening America. Don't forget after today's
Speaker 1: big news stories. You can check me out on the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast every Monday from Friday, so follow us
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