Figure 1
Sources and Recipients of California’s Federal ELC COVID-19 Funds as of Mid-December 2020
Figure 1 depicts a flow chart, showing how ELC COVID-19 funds have been distributed in California up to mid-December 2020. The flow chart begins on the left side, with the CDC and the $555 million in ELC funds that it granted to California. An arrow points right to a large circle in the middle of the figure labeled “Heluna,” showing that Heluna is the initial recipient of all $555 million. An arrow points down from Heluna, noting that Heluna retained $67 million from this amount. Another arrow points to the right, to a smaller circle labeled “Public Health.” This arrow shows that Heluna allocated $467 million to Public Health. An arrow points down from Public Health, noting that Public Health retained $181 million of this amount. Returning to the central “Heluna” circle, a second arrow points right to the smallest circle in the figure, labeled “Local Health Jurisdictions.” This arrow shows that Heluna allocated $20 million of the $555 million to local health jurisdictions. An arrow also points from the “Public Health” circle to the “Local Health Jurisdictions” circle, showing that Public Health allocated $286 million of the $467 million it received to the local health jurisdictions. The source for the figure is the Notices of Award for COVID-19-related ELC grants, Heluna budgets, and the Heluna-Public Health reimbursement contract.
Figure 2
In November and December 2020, COVID-19 Testing in California Significantly Exceeded Public Health’s Targets
Figure 2 is a line graph that compares how many COVID-19 tests Public Health planned to process between August to December 2020 and how many tests it actually processed. Public Health planned to process about 3 million tests in August 2020 and by December 2020 to have gradually increased this to 4 million. It actually processed about 3.5 million tests in August 2020 and then the number dropped slightly to a little more than 3 million in September 2020. However, in October 2020, it processed about 4 million tests, then about 5.5 million in November 2020, and almost 9 million in December 2020, significantly exceeding its planned testing totals. The source for the figure is analysis of Public Health’s ELC testing plan and online daily testing information.
Figure 3
Public Health and Local Jurisdictions Have Not Hired or Reassigned Sufficient Tracing Staff to Meet the State’s Estimated Need
Figure 3 is a bar graph that shows the estimated numbers of needed contact tracing staff from September 2020 to January 2021 and the actual number of staff. Contact tracing staff include both reassigned State employees as well as reassigned and newly hired staff at the local health jurisdictions. A line running left to right at the top of the bar graph shows that Public Health estimated the need for a little more than 31,000 tracing staff during from September to January 2021. However, actual tracing staff numbers fell far short of this goal. In September 2020, Public Health calculated there were 1,818 reassigned state employees and 7,407 local health jurisdiction staff. Public Health did not perform any analysis on actual tracing staff numbers in October 2020, but by its November 2020 analysis, the number of reassigned State employees had fallen slightly to 1,732, while local health jurisdiction staff had increased slightly to 9,866. In the December 2020 analysis, each category increased slightly again, with 2,187 reassigned State employees and 9,474 local health jurisdiction staff. In January 2021, Public health calculated there were 2,262 reassigned State employees and 9,817 local health jurisdiction staff for a total of about 12,000 tracing staff. Again, this was far below the original needed estimate of 31,000. The source for this figure is Public Health’s April 2020 contact tracing program workforce needs report and its revised January 2021 analysis of survey and staffing data.
Figure 4
In December 2020, Contact Tracing Successfully Identified Additional People to Contact in Only a Small Fraction of Cases
Figure 4 shows how contact tracing efforts in California have fallen short of the goal of identifying and notifying people that they may have been exposed to COVID-19. The figure looks specifically at data from late November through December 2020 and depicts four nested circles, with each circle getting smaller. The largest outer circle represents a selection of COVID-19 cases in California in December 2020, which totaled 834,437. A note at the bottom of the figure clarifies that according to Public Health, the total case number includes cases from the State’s contact tracing database and local-reported data from November 25 through December 24, 2020. The total case number excludes several specific categories of cases, such as those that are more than 10 days old or that occurred in a long-term care facility. The second-largest circle represents the 85 percent of total cases in which tracing contacts were attempted. The next circle represents the 40 percent of total cases in which interviews were completed. Finally, the smallest circle represents the 16 percent of cases in which additional contacts were identified. The source for the figure is Public Health’s Revised January 15, 2021, COVID-19 Contact Tracing Performance Metrics Summary, COVID-19 Case Interview Cascade.