HOPELESS

L.A. County Tells Doctors to Skip Testing Some Patients for Coronavirus

Local public health officials believe it's now too late to contain the spread of the virus.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has advised doctors to only test patients for the coronavirus if a positive result would actually impact their treatment. The department said in an official letter on Thursday that it was “shifting from a strategy of case containment to slowing disease transmission and averting excess morbidity and mortality.” The recommendation signaled a realization that there is little hope of containing the outbreak and came as a result of a growing number of patients and a limited number of tests. The decision could make it difficult to ever accurately determine the number of coronavirus cases in L.A. County, the country’s second-largest municipal health system.