This LA-Based Company Is Delivering Free COVID Tests to Angelenos

Keerthi Vedantam

Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.

This LA-Based Company Is Delivering Free COVID Tests to Angelenos
LA County Drops Curative COVID Test After FDA Alert on Accuracy

Los Angeles County is sending out free at-home COVID-19 tests as it tries to keep up with a surge in cases that are overwhelming test sites and leaving pharmacy shelves empty.

The county’s Department of Public Health announced over the weekend that all residents are eligible to receive free at-home PCR tests from Temple City-based Fulgent Genetics, in an effort to encourage testing and prevent the highly transmissible virus from spreading even further.


The county reported a positivity rate of more than 20% among those tested for COVID-19, with 1,628 people hospitalized with the virus. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county was bracing for an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, as those typically lag weeks behind case numbers.

Public health officials hope the free tests will ease long lines at PCR testing sites and alleviate the costs of at-home rapid testing kits. Some kits can cost up to $40 online or at drug stores, if they are even available.

“You have this perfect storm where we now have this [omicron] variant that we know is more infectious but not as lethal,” said Rita Burke, a professor of preventive medicine at USC. “So we're not seeing as many people die from it, which is a good thing, but we are seeing more people get infected with it. And so the key for that is the testing.”

But the initiative will leave many waiting as many as four days for a test result. The county’s PCR tests are mailed to residents within one to two days of an order, while the results will take another one to two days after they’re mailed back.

Two years into the pandemic, Los Angeles County is struggling to maintain proper testing infrastructure as demand rises exponentially amid the spread of the omicron variant. Many labs are struggling to turn around test results within a two-day span, when they are most useful for individuals and public health officials to track and slow the spread of the virus, according to infectious disease expert Jeff Klausner.

While universities including UCLA and Stanford have recently shuttered in-person classes for the first two weeks of the winter quarter, LAUSD schools remain open. Though the Department of Public Health is rolling out 1.4 million over-the-counter testing kits to schools across the county, it’s unclear how efficacious these efforts will be given the rampant spread of the virus.

“I think a lot of people in health care are concerned that we will continue to see other mutations in the virus and then there will be other variants,” said Kristen Choi, a professor at the UCLA school of public health.

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Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit
Photo: Relativity Space

The largest 3D-printed object to ever fly had liftoff yesterday as Long Beach-based Relativity Space launched its Terran 1 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Terran 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at around 7 p.m. PST March 22. It was Relativity’s third attempt at sending Terran 1 to the cosmos and the nighttime launch was quite a sight to behold. The clarity of the night sky was perfect to see the blue jets of flame cascading out of Terran 1’s nine Aeon 1 engines, all 3D-printed, as the rocket took off.

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https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?
Photo: Edge Sound Research

In 2020, the Minnesota Twins experimented with a new technology that brought fans the ability to physically feel the sounds they were hearing in the stadium in the back of their seats as part of a new immersive way to experience baseball.

The tech was made by Riverside-based startup Edge Sound Research, which built a mobile lounge – basically, a small seating section equipped with its technology and on wheels to travel around the stadium – for Twins fans to experience what it calls “embodied audio” around Target field. It was a bid on the Twins’ part to keep fans more engaged during the game, and Edge Sound Research CEO Valtteri Salomaki said the Twins were impressed.

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https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


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