California becomes 1st state to endorse coronavirus testing for people without symptoms

California is changing up who can receive coronavirus testing, becoming the first state to broaden the strict federal guidelines.

Public health officials in the state said Tuesday they are now recommending that asymptomatic people who work or live at places where the coronavirus could spread easily, like prisons or nursing homes, get tested, labeling them "Priority 1."

"California is leading the way," Brandon Brown, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Riverside, told the Los Angeles Times. "We will be able to test more individuals, identify more people with COVID-19, isolate them, and thereby both flatten the curve and prevent the future spread of infection."

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The federal guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list hospitalized patients and health care workers displaying coronavirus symptoms as the primary people eligible for testing, followed by elderly symptomatic patients and those with underlying health conditions. People who do not show any symptoms are a non-priority. While doctors do have a say in who can get tested, hospital administrators have been citing CDC guidelines in order to hold on to tests for the sickest patients, the Times reports.

Last Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said there was a shortage of testing swabs in the state, and on Monday, Los Angeles County announced it was experiencing a testing backlog. Bob Kocher, a member of Newsom's task force on testing, told the Times while some labs do have shortages of extraction chemicals, "we've come up with good plans to resolve bottlenecks. We have a nice supply." He also said that combined, high-volume labs in the state are able to run more than 80,000 coronavirus tests every day.