Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, county health officials and private labs are ramping up COVID-19 testing capacity as people anxious to visit family flock to centers and cases rise.
Los Angeles County has recently added some 6,000 appointments to testing locations across the region and expanded testing hours. This week, LAX started offering COVID tests to fliers for $150, just ahead of what is normally one of the busiest travel seasons.
It comes as coronavirus cases have surged back to alarming levels and demand for testing rises. Wait times at county testing stations are now running 10 to 20 minutes, and they could grow in the weekend leading up to Thanksgiving as more seek testing.
<p>Experts warn that a test doesn't guarantee that travelers won't bring the virus to Thanksgiving dinner. </p><p>"There isn't a testing strategy that makes Thanksgiving 'safe'," said Omai Garner, director of clinical microbiology at UCLA, who oversees testing for UCLA Health. "Thanksgiving should only be celebrated within households that have been pods through the pandemic."</p><p>The rise in cases led Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday to impose a "limited stay-at-home order" between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m for a month starting Saturday. </p><p>Still, as coronavirus cases swell across the country, lines at testing centers are getting longer. And private labs are preparing for the holiday season. </p><p>Curative Inc., which has administered two million tests in L.A., saw a 35% increase in testing this week. In that time alone, the startup ran 25,000 COVID tests. And other labs are opening up more sites. </p><p>Spokesman Ken Sanderman said the company is gearing up for more by expanding hours of operation at some testing sites including Dodger Stadium. That location will stay open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. </p><p>"We are anticipating a surge in patients coming to get tested through the rest of the year with the holiday seasons and rates rising, and have prepared in anticipation," Sanderman said.</p><p>Other labs, like Santa Monica-based Quantgene, are opening new test sites almost weekly. The startup that once supplied mostly production studios opened its second walk-in site — this one in Culver City — on Tuesday. </p><p>Spokeswoman Rachel Strohmeyer said the company is looking into opening more locations in East L.A. More clients are scheduling appointments to get nasal swab tests before travel, a trend "we only expect to continue," she said. </p><p>This week, the CDC warned Americans <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays/thanksgiving.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">against traveling</a> for Thanksgiving and urged them to celebrate at home instead. California has sent more counties back into the most restrictive category in the state's <a href="https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reopening scheme</a>. Over 94% of the state's population rests in that purple tier, including L.A. County.</p><p>The county is strongly encouraging residents to "not use testing as a permission slip to engage in unsafe activities," according to an emailed statement from the L.A. County Office of Emergency Management. </p>
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'The Fear Has Significantly Diminished': UCLA Neuroscientists Discuss Next Steps on Brain Chips
Oct 29 2020
Researchers are getting closer to using bionics to treat patients with memory loss and depression, but they'll have to address some crucial questions before it's commercialized. That's what three neurology UCLA researchers and professors said during the dot.LA Summit panel "Building the Bionic Human in L.A." hosted by managing editor Rachel Uranga.
Most of these concerns have to do with the ethics, safety and security of implanting brain chips, which are designed to stimulate memory functions for patients with Alzheimer's or inhibit them for patients with PTSD.
<p>And they were skeptical about Neuralink founder Elon Musk's <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-launches-neuralink-to-connect-brains-with-computers-1490642652" target="_blank">promises</a> to quickly bring to market a device that interfaces with the brain that Musk says could ease depression or other ailments. The bottom line, they said, was that there's still a gap between the technology and what researchers know about the brain. </p><p>"What are the guarantees that we can provide for these devices? Can I guarantee it'll work on ten out of ten patients and if not, is it worth the risk associated with the implant?" said Fabien Scalzo, assistant professor of neurology and computer science at UCLA. "I think there are still a lot of questions regarding that."</p><p>Each of the panelists focus on a different aspect of bionic engineering at UCLA: Scalzo works with a team to produce the hardware that Nader Pouratian implants into the brain. Meanwhile, Nanthia Suthana examines its effects on the patient's neurological functions. </p><p>Pouratian, a professor and vice chair of neurology at UCLA's school of medicine, said brain stimulation devices evolved from cardiac pacemakers, the first of which were developed in the 1970s. </p><p>"It's the same idea," he said. "We've been using that technology for over two decades. It hasn't changed radically in that time until very recently." </p><p>Today, engineers, scientists and neurosurgeons are rallying around an industry that's seen rapid growth. Specifically, they're working to stimulate the brain with greater precision and listen to brain activity, similar to the way doctors listen to the heart. The other key component of development includes improving the patient experience. Think scaling down the size of these devices and making them both wireless and rechargeable. </p><p>"The fear of brain stimulators has significantly diminished," said Pouratian. "As we expand and understand that better and make it safer, I think we're going to see it much more commonly accepted and sought after." </p><p>The devices in development are largely geared toward helping people with ongoing conditions, but Pouratian said he could see a day when people use them cosmetically to enhance memory, for example. The prospect could potentially expand human potential but would raise a whole host of concerns including access and the possibility of these devices being hacked. </p><p>Suthana, a UCLA assistant professor of neurosurgery and bioengineering, said some of the fears you hear surrounding bionic solutions might be premature. </p><p>"We're not quite where people might think we are in terms of doing these nefarious things that people suggest or 'Black Mirror' likes to show in their shows," she said. "But it's still absolutely critical to think about these things before we go down this road." </p>
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The University of California, Los Angeles received U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval Wednesday for a new novel coronavirus testing method that is faster and cheaper than most on the market, allowing for thousands of tests to be processed and their results returned in a day.
The test analyzes the genomic sequencing of samples to identify infected people — including those who are asymptomatic — by having them spit into a tube that then goes directly into a machine.
<p>The test uses saliva without extracting the RNA from it, and so is "accurate enough" in comparison to the traditional polymerase chain reaction — or PCR — tests, which are the existing gold-standard for testing but can take days to process, said Dr. Eleazar Eskin, a computer scientist and geneticist who is chair of the Department of Computational Medicine at UCLA. He was part of the team that developed the new testing technology.</p><p>The researchers who developed the method hope to test the entire UCLA population twice a week beginning in a few weeks and already have a <a href="https://stopcovid19together.org/testing" target="_blank">proof-of-concept online</a>, Eskin said.</p><p>The <a href="https://stopcovid19together.org/testing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">platform known as "SwabSeq"</a> looks for a piece of the genetic code of SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus that causes COVID-19. For every sample of saliva received, the researchers add a barcode or "sticker." They then mix the samples together and put them into the genomic sequencing machine. Then, by looking at the barcode or "sticker" of the result, they can identify those samples infected with the novel coronavirus.</p><p>At scale, "it costs $10 a test, and we can do tens of thousands of tests at UCLA with a lab of 10 people," Eskin said. The technology leverages decades of advancements in genomic sequencing technology since mapping of the Human Genome Project.</p><p>According to a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.04.20167874v2" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pre-print article on the technology, which has not been peer reviewed</a>, the researchers wrote: "SwabSeq is simple, sensitive, flexible, rapidly scalable, inexpensive enough to test widely and frequently, and can provide a turn around time of 12 to 24 hours."</p><p>The traditional PCR tests are far more labor intensive and require extracting the RNA from a patient's sample under a specific safety hood before they can be tested.</p><p>"We <a href="https://ucla.app.box.com/s/wqjwmxxtaurst5n10fk2ebeuky9klx82" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">literally have people spit into a tube</a> and that tube goes directly in the machine," Eskin said. "So it's going to be much more scalable."</p><p>The sample goes into a sequencer and then put onto a computer to analyze the data.</p><p>SwabSeq was developed as part of a collaboration between UCLA's Department of Human Genetics, the university's new Department of Computational Medicine, UCLA Health and Octant Inc., a startup biotechnology company founded and incubated at UCLA. The group began working on the new method in March, Eskin said.___</p><p>__</p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on <a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank">Twitter @latams</a>. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.<br/></em></p>
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