Kaiser Permanente is rushing to build a 7,700-square-foot state-of-the-art lab by June 1 that will be able to conduct 10,000 new coronavirus tests a day and help the state ease its shelter-in-place orders, a Kaiser official said Wednesday.
Dr. Brian Missett, a radiation oncologist who is associate executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, said test results from the $14 million lab on Second Street in North Berkeley will be available in well under 24 hours.
Missett said Kaiser, which has 4.5 million members in Northern California, currently is able to conduct about 1,500 tests a day for hospitalized and high-risk patients, so the new lab will be “a notable expansion.”
He said when the new facility is ready, Kaiser will be able to test more people without symptoms, such as health care workers and nursing home employees who may be exposed to the virus at work and need to be retested periodically.
Widespread testing is necessary so health officials can quickly and easily identify positive cases and trace each one’s contacts to tell them to self-quarantine.
The idea is to monitor populations and put the brakes on future outbreaks.
Currently, testing is available to Kaiser members and Kaiser employees who have Kaiser insurance.
Missett said Kaiser is coordinating with a state COVID-19 task force to see if it can provide tests for non-members when the new facility opens.
Kaiser officials said the process of designing, permitting and building a new facility normally would take at least 15 months or several years but because city of Berkeley officials cooperated and worked with them quickly, the entire process will only take 60 days.
They said it only took five days to get a building permit.
“The city has really been a good partner,” Missett said.
Construction work on the new lab is being done 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Kaiser officials.
Ridiculous. What a waste of money , time and resources.
Why? You don’t think it can be used for anything else after the crisis has abated?
The following is NOT true: “Currently, testing is available to Kaiser members and Kaiser employees who have Kaiser insurance.” My daughter had a terrible cough, slight fever, and difficulty breathing and was denied the test. Please check your source. Thank you.
Would it be better to wait and set up something like that for vaccine when it arrives?
Frustrated
A vaccine is not expected to be approved for at least another year.
The answer is of course not.
I’m surprised the Joint Genome Institute building in Walnut Creek’s Shadelands office park could not have been used for this. JGI moved to Berkeley in January meaning the building is empty and available. It’s already set up as a medical lab plus a production facility.
Excellent point
I heard on the news that Kaiser already owned the empty building.
What is going on here? Why wouldn’t they use a building already set up for this? And if its true Kaiser also owns it why wouldn’t they use it??
If Kaiser is involved in anything, it is human test subjects, so they will have long-term studies related to various aspects of this type of infection including drug trials, placebo studies, etc.
Thank the Lord they are doing this testing for the future. I read this and I am so thankful Kaiser is getting this new lab ready because we are going to need it. I have been a Kaiser member for years. They saved my life twice and have never let me down. Come on folks what objection could you possibly have? This is fantastic news. Yea.
Missett “… said when the new facility is ready, Kaiser will be able to test more people without symptoms, such as health care workers and nursing home employees who may be exposed to the virus at work and need to be retested periodically.”
So, in other words it is just another self-serving perk for employees of the medical professions. Sort of like the way they take all the parking spaces closest to the building they work in at Park Shadelands, Walnut Creek, and Martinez. Likely they will be running clinical trials on unsuspecting members enlisted as uninformed test subjects as well just as they have in the past. Good luck not getting assigned to the control (otherwise known as “placebo”) group. I understand they have a wealth of unsuspecting elderly and Medicaid patients on long-term clinical trials.
and Bill Gates is trying to put a 5G chip in your head…
@commmonscents I speak from experience. First joined Kaiser in 1968. I knew for a fact that I was in one study because somebody slipped up and told me. In about 2008, asked them to remove me from any long-term studies. Suddenly, I could get no medical treatment from them whatsoever, including medication I had been on for years.
They test on you, publish the results, and the medication is approved for over-the-counter use. Then, they’ll turn around and advise you to obtain it OTC. Happened to me with Benedril, Chlortrimaton Prilosec, and so many others I can’t mention. Got a Vicodin prescription one time that was 50% placebo. It worked half the time. Reported it to MedWatch and Kaiser refused to give me ANY kind of pain meds ever again.
I never signed any documents to file informed consent to participate in testing, which is required by law. Kaiser does not have their patients interest as a priority. They are testing drugs for drug companies and reporting results — most likely it pays the majority of costs involved in treating patients.