Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles was the largest testing site for COVID-19 in the United States, with the capacity to test more than 10,000 people a day. But two weeks in January, amid a chaotic and slow release of the COVID-19 vaccine, the city closed the site to convert it into a vaccination site. The city also closed another test site, temporarily reducing the testing capacity of the government-run COVID-19 by one-third.
It is a pattern that occurs across the country, in states like Florida, Nevada and Illinois. Health departments are working with limited resources to combat COVID-19, and many have had to make a choice: keep testing at the same level or focus on vaccination. “We remain very concerned that there are so many resources to spread,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of Municipal and Municipal Health Officials.
Even before vaccines were available, health departments struggled to keep up with testing and contact tracking. “That was before the vaccine was introduced, and that is another very complex, layered response,” says Freeman.
Collier County, Florida, closed all but one county-run test site so health officials could shift attention to vaccination. In November, there were four. Personnel was the main problem, said health department spokeswoman Kristine Hollingsworth. “There is a limited number of employees who can be tested and vaccinated,” she says. The department is now offering tests one or two days a week. “There is still a need for testing and we got questions about it,” says Hollingsworth. “Fortunately, at least in our county, there are other clinics and urgent care facilities that have tests.”
Across the state, the city of Jacksonville has converted two test sites into vaccination sites. Fort Lauderdale converted a site, which could handle about 1,000 COVID-19 tests a day. In Illinois, authorities closed the test site at the DuPage County Fairgrounds, outside of Chicago, so the health department could channel support for vaccines.
And in Clark County, Nevada, authorities reduced one of the top test sites to three days a week before closing. That site was running between 600 and 1,000 tests a day, says Fermin Leguen, an acting district health officer at the Southern Nevada Health District. “The reason for this is because we did not have the resources to be able to open a mass vaccination post,” he said The Verge. “It is a major challenge for any health department to be able to do both at the same time at a high level.”
Leguen says he hopes Clark County will be able to reopen the closed test site at some point. “We call this a temporary decision, but it depends on getting more staff so that we can continue offering the same level of testing.”
Pharmacies and health centers also offer COVID-19 tests nationwide, so health departments aren’t cutting all tests when they switch to vaccines. Department-managed sites, however, are optimized exclusively for COVID-19 tests and can process hundreds or thousands per day.
The relief bill passed by Congress in December included more than $ 8 billion for vaccine distribution, and this funding could help local health departments scale their efforts to vaccinate people. “Perhaps we can convert test centers into testing and vaccination sites,” says Freeman. The test sites are working perfectly in many areas, and departments can expand the infrastructure that already exists. A drive-through test center, for example, could add vaccination lanes without completely stopping testing. “We are not reinventing the wheel, we are taking advantage of what has already been done,” she says.
Additional funding is welcome, but it is coming too late for health officials who are trying to start their vaccination programs using their existing budgets. “These resources were needed six months ago to help configure the systems,” says Freeman. “We are totally struggling to catch up here.”
For now, in many departments, that means letting the tests slip off the priority list. The tests are still essential to help identify people who may be transmitting the virus, says Leguen. But, when weighing both, the secretariat believes that vaccination has a greater value for the community. “I will give preference to vaccination because we want to protect as many people as possible,” he says. “The sooner the better.”