A Newsy investigation looks at why labs across the country say they could be running more COVID-19 tests now. What's the holdup? Labs are now processing hundreds of thousands of tests a day for the coronavirus, much more than the trickle in the beginning but still far short of the 5 million tests per day Harvard researchers say it will take to safely lift America’s lockdown. And yet many labs have the capacity to do more testing right now.

Bay Area laboratories are marshaling their expertise to study promising ways of treating COVID-19 and improve testing for the illness as the world frantically fights the coronavirus pandemic. Local scientists are using procedures designed to investigate a potential cure for HIV on the coronavirus instead. Companies that have done work around rare eye conditions and genetic testing are now helping to test for the coronavirus. A major research funding institution is pouring millions of dollars into fast-tracked treatment projects, even as it tries to keep other projects on track.

Bay Area cities are taking up the mantle to test their first responders, health care workers and even members of the public for COVID-19 using technology from a Menlo Park company. Avellino Lab USA, Inc. on March 9 received U.S. Food and Drug Administration validation for its COVID-19 test on an emergency basis. The company, which specializes in gene therapy and molecular diagnostics, especially for rare genetic eye diseases, quickly adapted its technology to develop a rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to look at gene markers and the ribonucleic acid (RNA) — snippets of genetic material — of SARS-CoV-2, known commonly as the novel coronavirus. Results can be processed in four to seven hours, Eric Bernabei, chief sales and marketing officer, said by phone on Friday.

California is ramping up testing for coronavirus even as a backlog of 59,000 pending tests is growing, delaying some people from getting results for up to 12 days and leaving an incomplete picture of how widespread the outbreak is in the state. Testing rolled out slowly in California but is accelerating now. More than 90,000 tests have been administered statewide, but nearly two-thirds of those results were still pending, according to state figures. “The backlogs are not necessarily getting better, in real time, but we’re hopeful,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday.

According to results from the first week of operation for a city fire station turned COVID-19 testing site, more than a hundred people have tested positive so far, authorities said. Officials said Wednesday that the site at Hayward fire station No. 7, 28720 Huntwood Ave. has tested a total of 1,324 people during its first seven days, of which 130 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Hundreds sought testing when the site opened a week ago, but some were turned away for not displaying symptoms. The site has the capacity to test up to about 370 people a day.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit was granted exclusive access inside Avellino Laboratory, a Menlo Park-based genetic research firm that designed its own test for COVID-19. The lab plans to soon triple its staff in order to bolster its processing capacity to at least 7,000 coronavirus tests per day – potentially totaling millions of tests over the next year.

The FDA has issued an Emergency Use Authorization for Avellino’s COVID-19 Test, AvellinoCoV2. See the EUA on the FDA site.

Hundreds of sick people lined up near Fire Station No. 7 in Hayward on Monday hoping to get tested right then and there for coronavirus at a first-of-its-kind testing center. To qualify, they had to have a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, officials said, but that appeared to be the main hurdle. The tests were free, and people didn’t need a doctor’s slip to take them. “It’s for anybody, regardless of residency. You don’t have to live in the city of Hayward, you don’t have to be a citizen,” Capt. Don Nichelson of the Hayward Fire Department said. “We’ll take anybody from anywhere,” he added.

The City of Hayward is launching a coronavirus testing center on Monday. In the announcement, the City announced it is opening the facility "so sick people, first responders, and healthcare workers with recent suspected exposures to the novel coronavirus can be tested for infection." The facility will be at Hayward Fire Station #7, located at 28270 Huntwood Avenue, near Tennyson Road and Tennyson Park. The testing center will operate everyday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and will be staffed by Hayward city firefighter-paramedics and emergency-medical technicians. The test is free to the public, no matter where they live or immigration status.

On Monday, the City of Hayward will open a testing facility so sick people, first responders, and health-care workers with recent suspected exposures to the novel coronavirus can be tested for infection. The COVID-19 Testing Center, at Hayward Fire Station #7, 28270 Huntwood Avenue., has been established to take pressure off hospital emergency rooms, provide quicker answers for recently exposed first responders and health care workers, and to enhance the region’s capacity to suppress new transmissions through isolation after testing.

The Coronavirus-testing facility a Hayward fire station is now up and running. The site is focused on first responders, healthcare workers, and members of the public who have potential coronavirus symptoms. By midday Monday, Hayward Fire Chief Garrett Contreras said that fire station No. 7 had already screened about 500 people from across the Bay Area, and tested another 40. Contreras hand-delivered the first batch of tests to Avellino Lab USA in Menlo Park. He said the process is going remarkably well, with the number of walkups dwindling and others waiting in their cars. Contreras said Fremont fire personnel were assisting efforts and he was expecting observers representing the City of Berkeley.

Avellino Lab USA Inc. has developed a diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has been validated in keeping with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Policy for Diagnostics Testing in Laboratories Certified to Perform High-Complexity Testing under CLIA prior to Emergency Use Authorization for Coronavirus Disease-2019 during the Public Health Emergency. Physicians can order the assay now, while the company continues testing.