The mayor of Los Angeles offers free coronavirus testing to all its residents regardless of whether they have symptoms.
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that Los Angeles will get free coronavirus testing. It is now the first city in the US to provide the procedure for free whether one has a symptom or none.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Garcetti emphasized that those with symptoms will be the priority of the state.
He told reporters that Los Angeles is capable of holding roughly 9% of all tests in America.
Meanwhile, there are other regions in the state that are testing those who are not actively manifesting symptoms to understand the spread of the virus.
Bolinas, California was the first town to have its residents undergo free coronavirus testing. This program is part of a research project of the Marin County community of Bolinas and the University of California, San Francisco.
The University of California, San Francisco introduced a program that offers diagnostic and antibody COVID-19 testing to 5,700 residents. These are residents who live in a specific portion of the Mission District, the densest neighborhood in San Francisco.
The university partnered with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub to execute the initiative. They aim to collect data on the prevalence of COVID-19 in the area.
The population in Los Angeles is almost half of the state’s coronavirus cases. It reported over 20,000 confirmed cases, of the 45,031 total in California.
Meanwhile, other states say that COVID-19 testing is increasing but there are no inadequate tests available. Medical experts assert that testing must happen as soon as possible. This should also take place along with contact tracing and other efforts to isolate those who may infect others.
Five million tests per day
According to President Donald Trump during his White House briefing on Tuesday, coronavirus testing in the US can reach five million tests a day.
The President made this announcement as the lack of testing hinders many states from reopening businesses.
A reporter asked Trump if he is confident that the country can run five million coronavirus tests per day.
“We’ll increase it, and it’ll increase it by much more than that in the very near future,” Trump said.
However, data shows that the US is unlikely to perform five million tests a day. The most tests the country held on a single day was 314,182 on April 22. This is based on the data from the Covid Tracking Project.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has run 5.7 million total COVID-19 tests since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the volunteer project that can track testing data.
Trump told reporters “we’re going to be there very soon.” He does not have the exact information off the top of his head, but “if you look at the numbers, it could be that we’re getting very close.”
According to CNBC, if every state in the country held 40,000 tests daily, that would total 2 million tests per day. It remains far below the five million that Trump said he will exceed in the “very near future.”
