A medical professional administers a coronavirus test during a drive-thru testing station on March 26, 2020 in Daly City, California.Delayed test results make it difficult to pinpoint an accurate case count and to fight the coronavirus outbreak in the state overall.
California was one of the first regions in the US to institute a stay-at-home order, and some local health experts believe that early measures taken to enforce social distancing may be working.Roughly 64% of tests conducted for the coronavirus disease in the state of California are currently unprocessed.
Out of the estimated 92,500 tests that California has conducted for the coronavirus disease, 59,500 are still pending, theCalifornia has grappled with a shortage of testing materials from the get-go, as have other regions in the US and countries around the world. But according to an analysis conducted bybased on state testing data, California ranks 39th out of 50 states in the number of tests conducted per capita.
While California does have the largest backlog, only four other states make their testing reports public: New Hampshire, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Florida, the last of which has only 1,280 pending tests, according to the Chronicle."We have a new task force on tests and will provide some good news about our capacity to substantially increase our tests in the state of California," Newsom said according to the Chronicle.
Data, case counts, and hospitalizations are some of the best indicators to gauge how well a region or state is handling their respective outbreaks. That 64% of the California's tests are currently held up means that an it's difficult to pinpoint an accurate case count in the state. Without positive test results, it's also difficult for healthcare workers to determine which patients need to isolate and which do not.
Just like the rape kits...