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SAN JOSE – Santa Clara County on Tuesday opened a large-scale coronavirus testing site where officials hope to test thousands of residents every day and eventually offer flu and COVID-19 vaccinations.
The new location will provide drive-through, walk-up and bike-accessible tests to up to 1,000 people at county fairgrounds in south San Jose, with the capacity to expand to about 5,000 tests each day – all other local public test sites top and accounting for a significant portion of testing countywide.
“We started here as a real ground zero for COVID in the US, and six months into it we are still fighting,” health officer Dr Sara Cody said at a news conference. “The reason we are still fighting is that we have the tools to get out. One of the most important tools is testing – testing, testing, testing. ”
For months, the province has been pushing to establish more test centers because it was left behind by neighbors, first with state-owned partnerships with Verily and OptumServe, and later with more than 50 rotating pop-up sites. In June, the province also ordered private health care systems to provide tests to certain groups of people, arguing that some private providers had not stepped up.
The public health system Santa Clara – namely Valley Medical Center – accounts for about 40% of daily tests, said leader Dr. Marty Fenstersheib. With that in mind, the new site will focus people on symptoms as essential workers who are unable to test with their own supplier – although anyone can sign up for a test.
“We want people to come here … we want you to test at least once a month,” Fenstersheib said of frontline workers.
A place occupied by a separate part of the fairgrounds than the fairgrounds Verly site, the site has 10 traffic lanes for patients to form a queue. Most runs are intended for cars, but walking and cycling paths will also be provided.
The county is partnering with a Southern California lab that has promised turnaround times of about three days, Fenstersheib said, compared to days or weeks on other sites that rely on outrageous commercial labs. About 15 Valley Medical employees will serve the center.
Beginning this fall, the county plans to use the site to provide flu vaccines in addition to testing. That would later be expanded to include “the dream of a COVID vaccine,” Cody said.
Appointments are available Tuesday through Saturday and can be made online.
