In a major policy shift, any Los Angeles County resident will be able to get free COVID-19 testing regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office announced today, but it’s unclear if that’s actually true.
Hours after the announcement, Los Angeles County tweeted it had not changed its testing guidelines, seemingly contradicting the mayor. They said more information would be announced Thursday at 1 p.m.
Garcetti’s announcement would apply Long Beach residents, although not all testing locations in the city would be open to people without symptoms—only the testing center run through the city-county partnership at Long Beach City College’s Pacific Coast Campus.
The other testing sites in Long Beach, which are run by the city’s own health department, are currently restricted to people showing symptoms or frontline workers. There are other nearby testing centers in Bellflower and Carson that are covered by the announcement.
Coronavirus testing across the county has been limited to people displaying symptoms of the virus or essential workers such as health care professionals and grocery employees. But Garcetti said there’s now the testing capacity to provide tests for anyone in the county who wants to get one.
“We have been opening up each night to more and more people, and still at the end of the day we have those tests that are left over,” Garcetti said. “We had the confidence that we could move forward (with testing more people).”
The mayor said although Los Angeles could be the first major city in the United States to offer free COVID-19 testing to any of its residents, not all of the millions of people who live here will be able to rush to the testing centers overnight.
People would still have to apply online for an appointment by visiting coronavirus.lacity.org/testing. Priority will still be given to people showing symptoms and to first responders. Appointments can also be scheduled through Long Beach’s website.
During his nightly briefing, Garcetti initially said that testing would be made available only to Los Angeles city residents, regardless of symptoms. His office later clarified that the testing is available to anyone in the county. The county’s tweet about the issue came hours later around 9 p.m.
The city’s COVID-19 testing website states that, in partnership with the County of Los Angeles and actor Sean Penn’s Community Organized Relief Effort program, it is providing free COVID-19 testing to “all Los Angeles County residents.”
In addition, about 1 million antibody tests are coming to the Los Angeles area, Garcetti said, but those tests don’t show whether someone is currently infectious. The blood serum tests monitor a person’s level of antibodies, which is the best indicator available as to whether someone had the virus but recovered from it.
Garcetti said although the antibody tests won’t show if someone is immune, it’s “good to know” whether people may have had the virus, with or without their knowledge, painting a more complete picture of how widespread the infections have been in the area.
People can still spread the virus to other people, even if they never developed any symptoms.
Long Beach Post Breaking News Editor Jeremiah Dobruck contributed to this report. This story has been updated with information from LA County.