COVID-19 testing capacity.

Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to examine the causes of communicable diseases occurring, or likely to occur, in the state and sets forth the department's duties for disease inspection and reporting, including through state and local public health laboratories. Existing law requires the department and the Office of Emergency Services to establish a personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpile, upon appropriation and as necessary, with PPE-related guidelines established for a pandemic or other health emergency. Existing law sets forth various provisions specific to COVID-19 testing, including, among others, provisions relating to health care coverage for testing and certain programs or requirements for the workplace or educational setting. This bill would require the department to make plans to ensure that the laboratory infrastructure in the state is sufficient and prepared for COVID-19 testing capacity to be scaled, within a period of 2 calendar weeks, to 500,000 tests per day, and for results of at least 90% of those COVID-19 tests to be returned to the individuals tested and to the department within 24 hours of collection of the testing samples. The bill would require the department, for purposes of making these plans, to prioritize local public health laboratories and the state laboratory and to consider sufficient staffing. The bill would authorize the department to make plans to use the laboratory infrastructure for public health applications other than COVID-19 testing, as the department deems reasonable and appropriate based on the circumstances, including, but not limited to, testing for other specified infections, so long as that testing is otherwise authorized under law and the laboratory infrastructure continues to meet the above-described COVID-19 testing conditions.