As coronavirus tests become available to all Sonoma County residents, demand outstrips capacity

Before free coronavirus testing for Sonoma County residents even began Tuesday morning at two locations in Santa Rosa and Petaluma, nearly 2,000 residents had already scheduled appointments, reflecting pent-up demand for testing among the general population that quickly outstripped capacity and caught both the state’s testing contractor and county officials off guard.

The large volume of people from Sonoma County seeking appointments all but crashed the appointment website for OptumServe, the test site operator, filling up the 132 daily slots at each local site for at least the next week. At the Petaluma campus of Santa Rosa Junior College, appointments are booked solid for at least two weeks.

Several residents who sought to schedule appointments were turned away because the bookings were so jammed that the website and telephone operators showed no local testing was available. County officials caught on and lobbied state emergency leaders in a predawn email Tuesday to double the capacity of the diagnostic testing sites.

For those residents who did manage to secure appointments, the opportunity to be tested - after waves of health care workers, first responders, jail inmates and nursing home residents were given first priority in the past weeks - was a welcome chance to know their status, even if only in a snapshot.

“It’s peace of mind at the moment in time,” said Matt Carlson, as he waited for his turn outside the testing site at Santa Rosa High School.

A half-dozen people stood quietly at spots marked with blue tape along a ramp leading to North Gym, the old gymnasium. Inside, the high school banners and hardwood floors made for an otherworldly scene as testing site employees, covered in layers of protective equipment, went about their work.

A sign taped to the door warned, in bold letters: “PLEASE WEAR YOUR MASK AND HAVE I.D. READY.”

Tracy Ladd of Santa Rosa stood in line for about 20 minutes. She said she was there to be counted.

“I don’t know, I kind of want to just be a statistic,” Ladd said, referring to the updates on coronavirus cases and testing that she reads about every day.

Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer, said the new testing will help to determine how widely the virus has spread in the community, particularly among asymptomatic people who have not yet been eligible for testing.

“I think we’ve already learned one thing, and that is that people really want to be tested,” Mase said.

The new sites also represent another step toward the county’s overall target of 600 to 800 tests per day, a key benchmark that Mase says is needed to track community spread of the coronavirus and facilitate wider reopening of the economy.

Mase said she doesn’t expect to uncover many positive cases, citing a lack of evidence so far of extensive community spread based on the county’s aggressive contact tracing efforts.

“I think people will be reassured,” she said.

Nearly 2,000 people had booked appointments before noon Tuesday with OptumServe, a nationwide health services company contracting with the state to open 80 free testing sites to all California residents. The volume of local demand led briefly to the disappearance of Santa Rosa and Petaluma locations on the state contractor’s website as residents tried to book appointments.

It wasn’t a glitch, and the overwhelming response, which also led to prohibitive hold times for the company’s call-in line, far outpaced demand at the company’s other 78 locations statewide.

“OptumServe did not expect that kind of demand,” said Ken Tasseff, Sonoma County’s health privacy officer and liaison to OptumServe. “We’re getting demand unlike anywhere else in the state.”

The company started Sunday by opening appointments one week at a time. Residents could select one-hour blocks, with 12 appointments available for each block and 11-hour workdays equating to 132-test daily limit for each site.

By Monday, the first week was booked at both locations. Appointments for the second week in Petaluma filled up within hours, prompting officials to initiate a third week of appointments.

The rush was so unexpected that it prompted an urgent request about 3 a.m. Tuesday from county health officials to the state.

“We asked if they would be able to double capacity,” Tasseff said. “We put in a request to the Cal Office of Emergency Services to get a second lane in each of our locations.”

By Tuesday night, the county had not heard back from state officials on that request.

Earlier in the day, at Santa Rosa High School, residents were brought into North Gym one by one. They stood in front of a table, while a lone worker handled intake on the other side of clear plastic sheeting.

The sign advising people to bring a form of photo identification came a little too late for some.

Karen Panting forgot hers, but her husband, Dr. Norman Panting, had his affairs in order.

The payoff? A swab inserted far up his nose to hunt for any evidence of the coronavirus.

“They got pretty close to my brain,” he said, laughing. “It was slight discomfort, not bad.”

Norman, who said he is over 65, said he saw a patient in Vacaville in March, and thought the patient may have had COVID-19, which prompted him to get tested. He said he thinks everyone should, regardless of symptoms.

Karen Panting agreed.

“I feel relieved that we have the testing available now,” she said. “It can help us get back into some kind of a normal lifestyle. It won’t be the same as it was two months ago, but gradually, we’ll get there.”

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or at tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@tylersilvy.