UPDATE: April 30, 2020, 11:08 p.m. Adds an estimated timeline for testing shelter residents in second paragraph.
San Francisco turned down a research startup’s offer to test all of the city’s homeless shelter residents for COVID-19, urging the firm to divert its resources to other populations, according to interviews, emails and documents outlining the proposal.
Color, a Burlingame genetic research company, was set to start testing residents at two homeless shelters April 22. Shelter leaders and organizers had lined up doctors and volunteers to perform the testing, which Color claimed it could complete for San Francisco’s entire shelter population in 12 days. The company had drafted a letter of understanding, which the Public Press reviewed, outlining the plans. Then representatives from the company stopped replying to calls and emails from the administrators and advocates.
A Color representative emailed one of those contacts on April 28 to say that, after discussions with the health department, the company had shifted its focus to higher priority populations, such as nursing homes, in order to follow health department directives. READ MORE.
Any idea when SF will follow LA’s lead (with some embarrassment to be lagging, perhaps) and make testing available to the entire population?
#WeNeedTesting
#ForEveryone
@LondonBreed, how about it?
So what’s the point of your story when this is part of it:
” after discussions with the health department, the company had shifted its focus to higher priority populations, such as nursing homes, in order to follow health department directives.”
I don’t understand your headline. Nor do I understand why homeless shelter populations should be tested before others at high risk. Want to explain it to me?