Governor Gavin Newsom cut the ribbon Friday on a sparkling new lab in Valencia that will dramatically improve California’s ability to test for the coronavirus.
The new facility promises to deliver COVID-19 test results within two days, at the most.
Governor Newsom toured the gleaming new laboratory, a partnership between the state of California and the medical diagnostics company PerkinElmer, which he said will be able to process far more COVID-19 tests more quickly, and at a much lower cost.
The governor said with the pandemic spiking around the country and flu season arriving, there was a rush to get this building up and running.
“This lab is happening right at the right time,” Newsom said. “This lab and our capacity, now, have substantially increased. A minimum estimate of a 75% increase in our total testing capacity here in the state of California is happening just at the right time.”
The new lab guarantees results within 48 hours, but aims to deliver them within 24 hours.
It’ll be able to process 150,000 coronavirus PCR tests a day by the time it’s fully operational, bringing the cost of the tests down from more than $150 to about $30.





