UC Irvine Researchers Focus On COVID-19 Immunity

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — A new partnership with Orange County Health Care Agency and UC Irvine will help us better comprehend coronavirus-related statistics, according to Orange County Health Care Agency that currently releases all stats and figures, daily.

UCI researchers will use serology tests of 5,000 residents to see if they have developed antibodies as a result of infection.

The aim is to better focus on at-risk populations and to understand how long immunity to COVID-19 may last.

On Thursday, UCI released information on new strategies for identifying how people will respond to becoming ill.

• Read: How Would Coronavirus Affect You? UC Irvine Makes Bold Prediction

The county seeks to increase testing as it develops a program that includes contact tracing of symptomatic residents.

Still, it has been difficult to get testing approved for many people, Supervisor Lisa Bartlett said.

"I think it's because doctors were working on such strict CDC guidelines for awhile," restricting tests, which were in short supplies, to severely ill patients, Bartlett said.

"We have the capacity to test 9,000 a day," Bartlett said, adding the county has fallen well short of that number. "We're testing everyone who comes forward asking to be tested and has doctor's certifications."

To get to capacity, "we would literally have to pull people off the streets," Bartlett said. "And that's not appropriate. We want to test everyone who feels they should be tested and a doctor feels should be tested."

Ultimately, testing of asymptomatic residents will be important to develop a comprehensive program that will help health care officials quarantine where necessary, Bartlett said.

"It's important to have that data," she said.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to adopt California Department of Public Health guidelines for expanding COVID-19 testing and to direct county staff to ramp up efforts to test more residents. The state updated its guidelines because of the availability of more tests.

The state has created two tiers for testing. Tier 1 applies to hospitalized patients, health care workers, first responders and social service employees whether they are sick or asymptomatic, residents 65 or older whether they are sick or not, or anyone with chronic medical conditions that make them vulnerable to coronavirus.

The first tier also expands testing in skilled nursing and congregant facilities and for frontline workers in grocery stores and utilities.

The second tier is for lower-risk people who do not have symptoms.

Supervisor Don Wagner questioned why the county should be ramping up testing when there does not appear to be a great demand for it.

Supervisor Andrew Do, who is on the testing ad-hoc committee with Supervisor Doug Chaffee, said expanded testing will be particularly useful in reaching out to the "underserved communities" where the outbreaks are highest.

City News Service, Patch Editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.

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