Imperial County officials say that COVID testing is becoming limited

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - Imperial County officials say they are only encouraging people who are suspected positive to test. 

“Umm the state did put out some new recommendations to testing and I want to make sure the reasoning behind this is that it is not because we really want to test different people than we were recommending before we did it because the testing materials have become much more unavailable because of worldwide supply change issues as well as the big surge we’re having in many places across the country that has led to both increased need for testing and decreased availability of testing,” said Dr. Stephen Munday, Imperial County Health Officer.

Within the last week, there have been 27 COVID related deaths in Imperial county alone. 

Currently in ECRMC there are 62 COVID patients. 

Last week alone almost 600 patients were transferred from local hospitals to San Diego and Riverside County.

We do continue to transfer patients out. However, the number that we have transferred out has decreased. We think this is likely for a few reasons. First, both hospitals have increased their ICU capacity. So they are able to keep more ICU patients within County. Second, you’re absolutely right, as we’re seeing COVID-19 cases increase throughout California, other hospital’s capacity is less, said DR.Staats. 

Dr. Munday also says that sports could potentially be allowed in schools once the county is off the watchlist 

“ it’s possible that they may determine that youth sports are allowed for non-contact sports and sports where there might be the ability to physically distance and they could for example do that and then say that there would not be an audience.”

The state of California has not released any statement regarding youth sports but it is expected.