Several local Bay Area health offices issued an order today that requires private labs to report all of their testing results to public health authorities. Labs need to report the results within an hour. Also, they are required to report "information that allows health officials to better locate the person tested.”
Previously, private labs only had to report positive tests. That meant public health authorities couldn’t track rates of infection in communities where the virus might be spreading more quickly than others.
The order is effective in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara.