WASHINGTON, D.C. – Top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warns officials to pause reopening efforts as many states, including California, are seeing record high coronavirus cases. He said government and health officials should “seriously consider” new testing strategies to ensure heightened testing and control over the deadly virus.
Yet while testing becomes more available across the nation, one Southern California county lags in testing and faces scrutiny compared to its neighboring regions. Time and time again, Orange County residents like Neda Armstrong from Fullerton have called into virtual town halls to voice their concerns with their US congressmen, comparing Los Angeles’ testing to Orange County's.
“I didn’t feel like the excuse that L.A. is so much more populated vs. Orange County was a good reason,” Armstrong said. “I felt like ‘Wow, they are so much more populated and look what they’re doing and what they’re able to accomplish testing-wise.’ And so that gave me much greater feelings of concern and worry.”
Spectrum News 1 compared the top five most populous southern California counties; first, taking a look at the number of tests conducted in the last 14 days, as of July 1st. The website is updated on a rolling seven day time period.
According to the California government’s official COVID tracker, Los Angeles reported administering 499,253 tests, San Diego: 69,673, Orange County: 84,301, Riverside: 73,058, and San Bernardino: 62,690.
We cross referenced those figures with the county’s populations to get comparable numbers. For Los Angeles, with a population of 10.3 million, the county gave about 4,870 tests per 100,000 people. Riverside, with a population of 2.5 million, gave about 2,970 per 100,000. San Bernardino, with a population of 2.2 million, gave about 2,850 per 100,000. Orange County, with a population of 3.2 million, gave 2,635 tests per 100,000. San Diego with population of 3.3 million gave 2,068 per 100,000 people.
Although the populations of Riverside and San Bernardino counties are about a million less than Orange County and San Diego, they both administered more tests per 100,000 people.
And when comparing San Diego and Orange County, which have similar populations, to the number of cumulative tests since March, San Diego had 11,561 tests per 100,000 people, while Orange County had 8,410 tests per 100,000 people.
San Diego, overall, tested nearly 119,000 more people than Orange County, and if compared side by side, San Diego had about 37% more testing than Orange County.
These discrepancies are garnering attention from Capitol Hill. Fullerton Representative Gil Cisneros said he’s frustrated that in many of the dozen town halls he’s hosted since the pandemic started, there’s almost always a resident who expresses concern for Orange County's COVID testing.
“We need to test more,” Cisneros said. “We need to make sure that more people are getting tested so that we can have a better handle on this virus and not pretending that it’s not there and that if we stop testing it’s all just going to go away; that’s not the reality.”
He, along with several other Orange County Reps like Katie Porter and Mike Levin, sent a survey out to hundreds of constituents to learn more. Results showed 62% of county residents who wanted a test, hadn’t gotten one because “they were denied or did not know how” compared to the 21% of residents in Los Angeles, according to their survey.
The congressmen said they understand there may be reasons for falling behind, so they wanted to hear directly from the Orange County Health Care Agency, but when they wrote into the agency in June, they said they never got a reply.
“We need to make sure that more people are able to have access to getting tests,” Cisneros said. “They shouldn’t be turned away when they go to get a test and this is what’s still happening, and unfortunately, our board of supervisors in Orange County are making this a political situation.”
Cisneros’ constituent, Armstrong, said the OCHCA is supposed to be here to help, and questions why they won’t answer.
“I think when our representatives are asking questions about ‘What have you done with the aid that has been given to you to help our population and to understand whats going on?’ and there’s no answer, it’s greatly concerning. Because they need to explain to our representative so our representatives can explain to us,” Armstrong said. “Just the complete lack of transparency and answers and explanations does not make me feel better as time goes on, and we keep making sacrifices to hopefully one day go back to our lives.”
Spectrum News 1 reached out to the OCHCA for a response and was told to submit questions. Spectrum News 1 asked the OCHCA about the congressmen’s survey, whether the OCHCA believes they’re testing the appropriate and adequate number of people to combat the virus, compared to their surrounding counties, and asked to talk to an official.
They replied the same day: “Unfortunately we are not able to accommodate this request.”
There were two letters the congressman sent in. The first letter was in May about concerns for their constituents about possible testing barriers they faced. After that, the OCHCA responded in a written note and held a briefing, but Cisneros said they left the meeting feeling unsatisfied.
After hearing more concerns, they prompted a new letter in June, where they said the OCHCA has not responded. Although that’s the case, some congressmen believe they’re seeing a difference in the OCHCA, and said the agency has been attempting to communicate more with legislators.
A recent news story by the Orange County Register reported Orange County “erroneously inflated its COVID-19 testing numbers for more than a month, logging 30,000 more tests than it should have (reported), before the error was discovered and fixed”, and said some would consider the numbers “misleading”. The numbers included antibody tests when they were not supposed to.
The OCHCA director reportedly responded to say it was a “mistake” and it’s fixed now to reflect the correct number of COVID tests administered.