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Print Long lines for testing at many locations in San Diego County, driven by a more contagious coronavirus variant surging through the community, are prompting a return to the kind of high-volume centers that largely went away as vaccination campaigns significantly slowed the pace of the pandemic this spring. The change was most visible Monday in a Cal State San Marcos parking lot where crews hurried to put up awnings, creating a new walk-up testing location capable of collecting at least 1,000 samples per day, starting Tuesday. A similar operation, said Dr. Denise Foster, the county’s chief nursing officer, is in the planning stages at San Diego State University and should be up and running by the end of the week, though no specific date has yet been set. ....
The caution is due to the increase of the U.K. variant, also known as the B117 variant. “This will be the most prevalent in San Diego, likely by the end of March, he said. Given the increase, Dr. Bakhtar said scientists know B117 can be easily transmitted, but he said it is not clear at this point if the variant makes people sicker and causes more deaths than other COVID variants that have caused the majority of infections over the last nine months. More data will be forthcoming and Dr. Bakhtar said people need to be open minded. “I think we should be willing to learn from the data that we collect over the course of the next few weeks to a month and I think we’re going to have a lot more information ahead of us that will allow us to make the best decision when that time comes around, he said. ....
“I always want to be one step ahead,” said Cummins. “Having it (antigen test) just be readily available when I need it has been wonderful.” Her son Kyson is a T-K student in the district. He was given the nasal swab test right after his mother. “Kind of like ticklish, ticklish,” he said describing how it felt. Doctor Omid Bakhtar, a physician at Sharp Hospital, is co-chair of a county task force looking at what it would take to test for antigens at schools. Coronado Unified was the first to make it happen, and since January more than 1,800 people have been given the rapid antigen test, which can produce results in 15 minutes. ....