COVID-19 Test Center Opens at Harbor General, Another to Come

By Joseph Baroud, Contributor

The lack of testing has left municipalities blind to how far and wide asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 have spread. In response, cities, including the city of Carson, have been pushing for testing sites. One finally opened on April 21 at UCLA Harbor General Hospital.

The Los Angeles County Health Department partnered with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and UCLA Harbor General to open a test site, which has the capacity to conduct 350 tests daily. Behind the emergency room building, there are two black tents with nurses administering tests. Patients can be tested from the comfort of their vehicles.

Nurses covered with their personal protective equipment from head to toe will ask you to cough hard into your arm twice, then swab the inside of your cheek for 10 seconds, then swab the roof of your mouth for 10 seconds. The swabs are then  placed inside a container and sealed in a bag for shipment to the lab for testing.

In order to get tested you must be showing some symptoms of COVID-19. Test results, whether positive or negative, are emailed to the patient within three to five days. If the patient tests positive, the patient will also receive a phone call with further instructions on how to proceed.

Mayor Albert Robles and the rest of the city council have been working on securing another test site that is within Carson’s city limits. He announced at the April 21 council meeting that the city of Carson is partnering with U.S. Health Fairs, an organization dedicated to rapid testing.

They are opening another test site in the city during the week of April 27. Results will be available within one day. Like the county test centers, this one requires the person to make an appointment at u.s.healthfairs.org. And like the county sites, this test is free, but people with insurance will have their insurance companies billed and people without medical insurance will be exempted from payment.

But, unlike the county sites, they will be testing asymptomatic people. This is important because a lot of people with good immune systems could very well have COVID-19 and not even know. They wouldn’t quarantine themselves being oblivious to the fact that they’re carrying it and would be able to unknowingly spread it amongst many others.

Results from both sites will be confidential. Residents without vehicles will still be able to get tested. There will be a seperate section for walk-ins.

Los Angeles Fire Department Public Information Officer Pono Barnes said that besides testing, they’re offering numerous ways to keep the public informed about what to do, what to expect and how to deal with this pandemic. For people who don’t have COVID-19, and for people who do have it, the best way to stay without it, or to deal with having it is information.

“We have a number of resources echoing this message,” Barnes said. “We have a joint information center setup at the county emergency center and this consists of a number of departments and numerous agencies, a multi-prong approach you could say. We’re echoing it to our supervisorial district from the local municipality. We have social media campaigns. We’re reaching out to the city’s managers’ offices. We’re utilizing our health care partners and their network of notifications and emails to make sure that message is spread out. We hold a daily press conference at 12:30 p.m. We use traditional media. We have radio, digital. We’re pretty well diversed.”