County, Rady Children's Hospital to test 2,000 daily for COVID-19

The County and Rady Children's Hospital have launched a new initiative to test up to 2,000 children and their families daily for COVID-19 over the next six months.

Developed with the support of the county's T3 Strategy of "test, trace and treat," the COVID Collaborative for Children will include testing at Rady hospital, clinics, as well as at the locations of Rady's health care partners.

Rady Children's Hospital officials said children and their parents can get a test during wellness visits at the facility or its affiliated pediatric primary care offices. The hospital also will test its entire staff.

The goal is to start with about 400 tests daily and ramp up over the next six weeks to about 2,000 tests a day. The tests will be free to all participants. Children are automatically covered under state law. Costs for adults without insurance will be paid by the county.

"COVID-19 is not a disease that only impacts older adults," Dr. Wilma Wooten, county public health officer, said. "Pediatric cases have been reported in San Diego County."

Of the nearly 7,000 COVID-19 cases in the region, 5.6% or 391 cases have been reported in children and teenagers. Also, about 52% of the cases were in people between 20 and 49 years of age.

Wooten added that it is important to offer testing to families because there have been reports of children who had COVID-19 but lacked symptoms, leaving them in a position where they could unknowingly spread the virus.

The county's COVID-19 webpage contains additional information on the disease, including a graph showing new positive cases and total cases reported by date. The data is also broken down by gender, race and ethnic/race group. An interactive dashboard with several COVID-19 indicators is being updated daily. For more information, visit http://coronavirus-sd.com.