California Coronavirus Case With No Travel Link Shines Light On Deep Flaws In CDC’s Early Testing Strategy

The New York Times: Coronavirus Diagnosis In California Highlights Testing Flaws
Already in deep distress, the patient was rushed last week to a hospital in Northern California, severely ill and unable to breathe on her own. Doctors at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, near Sacramento, provided the woman with critical care but also considered an unlikely diagnosis: infection with the coronavirus. Hospital administrators said they immediately requested diagnostic testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the procedure was not carried out because the case did not qualify under strict federal criteria: She had not traveled to China and had not been in contact with anyone known to be infected. (Rabin, Fink and Sheikh, 2/27)

Stat: A Single Coronavirus Case Exposes A Bigger Problem: The Scope Of Undetected U.S. Spread Is Unknown
Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run. (Branswell, 2/27)

Kaiser Health News: New California Coronavirus Case Reveals Problems With U.S. Testing Protocols
Multiple experts interviewed said the case underscores the need for more widespread community testing of the new coronavirus, which has sickened tens of thousands of people in more than 45 nations around the globe. It also highlights how the CDC’s narrow testing protocols, combined with the agency’s continued delays in getting functional coronavirus test kits to state and local public health agencies, have hindered the public health system’s ability to respond to the outbreak. (Barry-Jester and Bluth, 2/27)

NPR: Coronavirus: Diagnosis Of Patient In California Was Delayed For Days
The new patient, who lives in Solano County and has not been identified, was transferred to UC Davis Medical in Sacramento County from another hospital this month. Staff at UC Davis then suspected the patient might be infected with the coronavirus that has caused more than 2,800 deaths. "Upon admission, our team asked public health officials if this case could be COVID-19," the hospital said. "We requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor CDPH [California Department of Public Health] is doing testing for coronavirus at this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered. UC Davis Health does not control the testing process." (Chappell, 2/27)

CNN: California Patient With Unknown Origin Of Coronavirus Is In Serious Condition, Official Says
The patient, who is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center, could be the first instance of "community spread" of the virus, the CDC said Wednesday. "That suggests that the virus is out there in the community, and that means pretty much that everybody's at risk," Dr. Dean Blumberg, an infectious disease specialist at the center, told CNN affiliate KCRA. "We don't know who might be carrying it. We don't know who we can get it from." (Maxouris, 2/28)

San Jose Mercury News: Coronavirus: Testing Is Far Behind And Not Catching Up
“This case marks a turning point,” said Dr. Sonia Y. Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health at the Thursday briefing. “We are expanding surveillance activity, increasing lab capacity and planning for increased demand on medical systems.” (Krieger and Sciacca, 2/27)

The Washington Post: California Undertakes Extensive Effort To Trace Contacts Of Woman With Coronavirus
California has launched a far-reaching effort to find anyone who might have come in contact with a new coronavirus patient infected despite having no known link to others with the illness, as federal officials tried Thursday to fix the faulty testing process that has hamstrung their ability to track how widely the disease is spreading. (Fowler, Bernstein and McGinley, 2/27)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Testing Is Under Scrutiny After Delays And Questions Over Its Effectiveness
The kits have come under growing scrutiny. The CDC distributed the test kits to partner laboratories across the country, but many of those campuses ran into problems with one of the ingredients, leading to inconclusive test results. Most public health officials needed to send specimens to the CDC’s central laboratories in Atlanta for testing, a process that can take up to 48 hours, creating a bottleneck. “We’ve only had a handful of labs that can test with it. The rest have been on pause,” said Scott Becker, the executive director of the Assn. of Public Health Laboratories. “When you’re waiting 48 hours to get a response from the CDC, you’re burning through equipment caring for a patient, just waiting to see the results.” (Baumgaertner, Wigglesworth and Shalby, 2/28)

NPR: CDC Has Fixed Issue Delaying Coronavirus Testing In U.S., Health Officials Say
Federal health officials say they have resolved a problem that has hindered wide testing for the new coronavirus in the United States, a crucial practice for fighting the spread of the dangerous new infection. A problem with one ingredient in test kits that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed to labs around the country had created a frustrating bottleneck in testing, requiring most testing to occur at the CDC in Atlanta. (Stein, 2/27)

CIDRAP: Feds To Allow State Public Health Labs To Test For COVID-19
As many as 40 state public health labs could begin testing for the COVID-19 virus using parts of the test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as early as this week, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). "As of now: @CDCgov & @US_FDA developed a new protocol using 2 of 3 components of original test kit. Many public health labs are able to use the original kit w/out problem component to begin testing as soon as this week," APHL said on its Twitter feed. (Soucheray, 2/27)

The New York Times: Coronavirus In California: What You Need To Know
California officials said this week that they had bolstered efforts to confront the growing threat of the coronavirus, declaring that they were prepared and pursuing aggressive measures to thwart its spread. Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Thursday that the state had pushed for improved and expanded testing, urging federal officials to alter a testing protocol that he considered “inadequate” to address the situation California faces. He also said officials were actively monitoring people who might have come into contact with the pathogen. (Rojas, 2/27)

Reuters: California Monitoring 8,400 People For Possible Coronavirus
California is monitoring more than 8,400 people who arrived on commercial flights for coronavirus symptoms from "points of concern," but the state lacks test kits and has been held back by federal testing rules, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday. California has only 200 test kits, but has appealed for testing protocols to be expanded to include Americans who may catch the virus as it spreads through U.S. communities, Newsom told a news briefing in Sacramento, the state capital. (Hay and Russ, 2/27)

The Hill: California Monitoring 8,400 People For Coronavirus 
"We are not overreacting nor are we underreacting to the understandable anxiety many people have," Newsom said. (Sullivan, 2/27)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Testing Widened As California Case Makes Containment More Urgent
“We have just a few hundred testing kits in the state of California,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Thursday at a news conference. “That’s simply inadequate to do justice to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head on. . . . Testing protocols have been a point of frustration for many of us.” (Johnson and McGinley, 2/27)

KQED: California Seeks Origin Of First Possible Community Transmission Of COVID-19
The state, she said, is ramping up disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, planning for greater demands on the medical system and modeling the disease to forecast future community needs. (Venton, 2/27)

The New York Times: ‘It’s Scary’: Residents Near Mystery Coronavirus Case Worry And Wonder
In the parking lot of a big-box store, Rick Lodwick tossed a jumbo pack of sanitizing wipes into the back of his car. “I’m middling alarmed,” Mr. Lodwick, an engineer, said as he listed the provisions he bought on Thursday after learning that a woman from his county, Solano, was believed to be the first person in the United States to test positive for the coronavirus without having a known connection to others with the illness. (Fuller and Bogel-Burroughs, 2/28)

Los Angeles Times: Students At UC Davis And Other Colleges Under Self-Quarantine After Potential Coronavirus Exposure
Three UC Davis students are under 14-day isolation as one awaits test results related to the new strain of coronavirus after showing mild symptoms, officials said Thursday. The students are roommates at Kearney Hall, UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May confirmed in a statement Thursday. (Shalby, 2/27)

San Jose Mercury News: Coronavirus: How Bay Area Schools, Arenas And BART Prepare
With anxiety mounting over the potential spread of coronavirus, officials in charge of some of the Bay Area’s busiest public gathering places — its mass transit agencies, arenas, schools, colleges and airports — say they are in close contact with public health leaders about how to confine the growing threat. But while some are taking early precautionary steps, they so far have avoided following the more severe measures that have disrupted lives in countries where the illness has spread more rapidly. (Savidge, 2/27)

KQED: UC Davis Isolates Three Students
UC Davis has isolated three students who were roommates living in Kearney Hall, according to university and county medical officials. A university press release issued Thursday said officials made the move "out of an abundance of caution." Two of the individuals are not showing symptoms, said Dr. Ron Chapman, Yolo County Health Officer, at a press conference the same day. Following CDC guidelines, he said, they are therefore not being tested. One student shows mild symptoms and is being tested for COVID-19. This student is not on campus, but is isolated at home. (2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Live Updates: Up To 100 Health Workers Exposed To Solano County Patient
Officials in Solano County declared a local emergency after a resident tested positive for the new coronavirus without any clues as to how she could have been infected. The declaration will help the county rally resources to start identifying and screening individuals who may have come into contact with the patient, officials said. “We are taking this situation seriously and are taking steps necessary to protect the health and safety of Solano County residents,” Dr. Bela Matyas, Solano County’s health officer, said in a statement. The county will be holding a press conference at 4:30 p.m. in Fairfield. (Allday, Pender and Serrano, 2/27)