Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic groups is working to increase the number of tests for the new coronavirus in the Bay Area by at least 1,000 tests a day in “the next few days,” he said in a statement. Facebook post on Thursday. Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) tells The edge that the goal is to be able to support at least 1,000 tests in less than 30 days.
CZI, which manages Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan, is working with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), which would administer the COVID-19 tests, according to CZI. They also collaborate with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which researches ways to cure and manage disease. The collaboration is possible thanks to a executive order from California Governor Gavin Newsom to help Biohub help UCSF expand its testing capacity.
UCSF currently has a test capacity of between 60 and 100 tests per day, according to UCSFso scaling up to 1,000 tests per day would be a significant increase.
“Increasing test volumes is ongoing and involves complex logistics work to report test results to various organizations,” said Dr. Steve Miller, a professor of laboratory medicine at UCSF, in a statement to The edge. “Our goal is about 1,000 tests per day, although we will scale up gradually to ensure that we increase testing capacity in the most effective way.”
Zuckerberg outlined his plans to help with Bay Area testing earlier this month when he said he would fund a four-fold increase in Bay Area coronavirus testing through CZI and Biohub through a March 10 announcement. CZI and Biohub purchase two Food and Drug Administration approved diagnostic machines that can test for diseases such as COVID-19 that will be used by UCSF, according to a CZI press release.
At the time of that announcement, UCSF was expected to start increasing test volume as early as March 16, the San Francisco Business Times reported. It is unclear whether that extension has already happened.
Stanford also hopes to increase test capacity to more than 1,000 tests per day in the coming days, according to the CZI press release published yesterday. Stanford declined to comment when asked if it could provide more details about that timeline.