LAKE COUNTY — Though Lake County continued to have no confirmed cases of COVID-19 by Tuesday morning, more testing for the virus will be needed in order to respond accurately to the situation, a county official indicated.
Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace told the board of supervisors during a meeting Tuesday that testing for the virus has been “a huge issue, and continues to be a struggle” in Lake County as well as throughout the State of California and the nation.
About 90 tests have so far been returned locally, all with negative results, Dr. Pace said. Roughly 30 are still pending.
The department in the last week tested 20 “mildly symptomatic” Lake County residents in an effort to diversify the populations being tested. All 20 tests came back negative, Dr. Pace said. Between 100 and 150 more sampling kits have been obtained by the department as well, he noted.
Dr. Pace added that the public health department is forming a plan to administer testing in residents’ homes using test kits from the county’s two hospitals, in order to increase the daily test rate.
“We don’t really have the staff to set up a drive through testing site,” Dr. Pace said. Instead, the department in conjunction with local hospitals will visit difficult-to-reach residents and administer tests in their homes, then send the kits to the local public health lab. “We really only have the capacity to do 10 a day like that, but at least it’s something,” he said.
“This is a total jerry rigged, bailing wire kind of strategy, but it seems really important for the community to get this availability during the next couple weeks.” Dr. Pace said. “If we can pick up the first couple cases as they’re just starting to present themselves, then we can move in and do contact tracing, and help people isolate better.”
Dr. Pace said he is hopeful that more widely available testing will materialize within a couple weeks.
In the meantime, Dr. Pace said his department is preparing for when positive test results do start appearing in Lake County, as they already had in all but nine California counties by Tuesday afternoon.
The Lake County Fairgrounds in Lakeport has been identified as a site for isolating coronavirus patients who are unable to properly isolate themselves at home, Dr. Pace said. “If they can’t do it at home, then they can go to this site.” A shipment of trailers for this purpose has been ordered from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“What we’re working towards is getting the fairgrounds site available, with trailers—we’ve ordered 50 trailers through FEMA, with 50 more probably being ordered a couple weeks down the road,” Dr. Pace said. When the trailers will arrive is still unknown, and several fairground buildings have been identified as possible accommodations for future patients, he noted.
A Lake County resident identified as Candace Brown, who had submitted comments to the board of supervisors before its meeting on Tuesday, expressed concern that locals are not being made sufficiently aware that a lack of COVID-19 testing could be concealing current cases of the virus in Lake County.
“As our country is progressing further into this Pandemic ‘no known cases’ in Lake County is giving, a huge false sense of security to many of our community members,” Brown wrote. “I do not feel like enough information is being told or stressed to our community about the lack of testing and the connection between that resulting to the ‘no known cases.’”
Dr. Pace agreed that there is no way to know with certainty, given the lack of testing, that the virus is not present in Lake County.
“We don’t have adequate testing,” Dr. Pace said. “Until the tests start turning positive…we are, a little bit, working in the dark.”
Another local resident voiced concerns about the closure of Clear Lake to recreation during ongoing shelter-in-place orders.
“What I am asking the the board of supervisors to do is to simply please consider at least opening our lake to local residents only,” wrote Bryan Dobrowski.
Several supervisors noted that though they shared his concern about lake access, it would be unwise to open it back up now.
“We know it’s painful, we know it’s frustrating,” said board chair Moke Simon. “Just be patient.”
“We’re not going to be able to stop it,” Dr. Pace said of the coronavirus. “If we can slow it down enough so that the healthcare system can manage what comes to it…we’re hoping we may be seeing some of the benefits from all the misery people have been in lately, of just having to stay home and not work.”
