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New Drive-Thru Test Site at Pier 30/32 for SF’s Frontline Workers Opens

Drive-thru/walk-thru COVID-19 testing facility opens for healthcare workers, police and fire.
By - posted 4/6/2020 No Comment

Mayor London Breed Announces CityTestSF: Covid-19 Testing Site For Frontline Workers

Mayor London N. Breed, Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax, and the Director of the Port Elaine Forbes on Monday, April 6 announced a new dedicated COVID-19 testing facility located at Pier 30-32. The facility will primarily expand testing resources available for critical first responders and health care workers who are essential to the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The expanded testing capacity builds on the City’s commitment to protect frontline workers and to increase the City’s ability to combat the spread of the virus.

What You Need to Know

  • New drive-thru/walk-thru dedicated testing facility opens April 6, 2020 at Pier 30-32
  • Site is dedicated to Police Officers, Firefighters, Sheriff’s Deputies, 911 Dispatchers, health care workers and other City employees launching
  • CityTestSF will prioritize serving the City’s first responders and health care workers to help preserve San Francisco’s capacity to serve the public during this emergency.
  • Capacity is expected to be 200 COVID-19 tests by end of week.

While the City’s Public Health Order to stay home except for essential needs and essential work remains in effect, a subset of the population, including first responders and health care workers, remain on active duty. Seamless and efficient access to testing is critical to ensure these essential workers get the care and treatment they need if they are exposed to COVID-19, and to prevent additional spread of the disease to others.

This CityTestSF facility will enable the City’s frontline workers engaged in the fight against COVID‑19 to continue serving the community while protecting their health and safety, as well of the health and safety of their families, their colleagues, and the public.

The facility will open and begin drive- and walk-through operations by appointment, starting today, Monday, April 6th. This site will steadily increase capacity and will be able to conduct 200 COVID-19 tests per day by the end of the week.

Testing will be prioritized at first for San Francisco first responders and City health care workers with symptoms of COVID-19 who are currently quarantined and kept away from both work and their families.

To date, over 200 frontline sworn staff have been in 14-day quarantine. Having access to expanded testing will mean that frontline staff who have become infected can be identified earlier and get the care they need, and frontline workers who experience flu-like symptoms but are not infected can return to their families and work earlier with the necessary personal protective equipment and workplace safety protocols.

The test will be provided at no cost to employees in partnership with the City’s health care plan providers. Initially, CityTestSF will focus on Sheriff’s sworn staff, police, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, 911 dispatchers, and City health care workers with plans to rapidly expand to other City employees on the frontlines fighting the pandemic. Initially, eligible employees will receive personal invitations for testing. By the end of the week, the City will launch an online system for eligible frontline employees to sign themselves up for testing directly.

The site will quickly ramp up its capacity in order to test all first responders currently in quarantine and then to all those showing symptoms of the virus who are self-isolating at home. Additional groups the City plans to test at this site as capacity grows include San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency employees providing essential transit services, staff interacting with seniors and other vulnerable populations (such as homeless individuals), nonprofit workers providing essential services, private ambulance drivers, shelter workers, and staff transferring isolation patients into hotels.

The City is partnering with two Bay Area companies—Color and Carbon Health—to run the testing effort. Color has launched a COVID-19 testing platform and high capacity, CLIA-certified laboratory at its headquarters in Burlingame, California, to support expanded testing for frontline workers. Color’s new laboratory adds capacity to the City’s overall testing efforts, and will provide rapid results within a 24 to 48-hour turnaround time. All test results will be reported to the Department of Public Health.

Carbon Health, headquartered in San Francisco, has supported frontline worker testing efforts across the State of California and is providing their clinical support to the effort at cost. Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis Carbon Health has been at the forefront of the pandemic to increase access to care and testing. They provide an online assessment tool and telemedicine screening to risk-stratify patients based on CDC criteria, and offer testing across its Bay Area and Los Angeles clinics.

Expanding San Francisco’s testing capacity is critical to slowing the spread of the virus. CityTestSF is part of San Francisco’s ongoing commitment to rapidly increase its testing capacity while pursuing strategic partnerships, including leveraging the expertise of the San Francisco’s private health care providers. This testing facility will develop and establish a new model for highly accessible, repeatable testing efforts to help ensure the safety of the City’s critical employees, their families, and the people they serve.

On March 27, Mayor Breed announced an initial step to provide prioritized testing for first responders and health care workers. San Francisco first responders and health care workers who are covered under San Francisco Health Service System plans—Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield of California and UnitedHealthcare— can continue to contact their health care provider to evaluate their symptoms. Upon confirmation that their symptoms indicate that a COVID-19 test is needed, their test will be prioritized along with other tests for high-risk, vulnerable patient classes. Today’s announcement builds on this first step, adding CityTestSF as an additional testing option for eligible frontline workers.

The City has been working to expand testing capacity, including at the Public Health Lab, hospitals, commercial labs and with community partners, such as NEMS, which opened two drop-in testing sites for their patients last week. The expanded availability of testing is expected to increase the number of positive COVID-19 cases confirmed in San Francisco. As of March 24, San Francisco along with other Bay Area counties issued a health order requiring laboratories performing COVID-19 tests to report all testing data to state and local health authorities. The City is working with UCSF and UC Berkeley to use the data and develop models to understand the spread of virus in the community and inform data driven responses.