Sonoma County To Reach Key Testing Milestone May 18th

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Sonoma County’s Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said on Monday that Sonoma County will reach a critical coronavirus testing milestone in one week’s time.

That’s when the two state-funded testing sites in the county, open to everyone, will finish ramping up daily output to more than 500 tests a day.

Those testing sites, at Santa Rosa High School and the Petaluma Campus of Santa Rosa J.C. are currently processing 260 tests each day. By May 18th they are expected to double that to 520 tests. The sites are operated by Optumserve, a healthcare contractor hired by the state of California.

State guidelines call for each county to increase daily testing to 150 tests per each 100 thousand in population. That would be approximately 750 tests in Sonoma County. At that level, the county would meet testing criteria required to further open up its economy.

Currently the county is testing around 250 individuals per day at a drive-through site. That site is currently open only to healthcare workers, first responders, high risk individuals, and workers in essential businesses.

However, the state run sites are open to all, and would bring the county’s daily testing numbers to more than 800 per day.

Mase says the two sites run by Optumserve are critical to understanding how prevalent the coronavirus is in the general population, and how much community spread is occuring at any given time.

Sonoma County current has 137 active cases of coronavirus, with 168 people having recovered. There have been 4 deaths in the county, including one in the past 24 hours.

More than half of all cases, 52 percent, have been come through close contact with an infected person, with just 17 percent through community transmission. And, of more than 8 thousand tests performed in the county, only 3 percent have come back positive.