Report: COVID expert rips Berkeley Public Health response to Cal’s case count. “It is not an outbreak”

An infectious disease specialist at one of the nation’s foremost medical centers roasted Berkeley Public Health for its decision to test the entire Cal football team for COVID — a move that resulted in numerous positive tests and forced the Bears to play one game with a depleted roster and call off Saturday’s date with USC.

Dr. Monica Gandhi is the associate chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco.

During an interview Wednesday with KPIX, the CBS affiliate in the Bay Area, Gandhi pushed back on the notion that 44 cases within Cal’s football program over the past 10 days was cause for concern.

“I have zero panic whatsoever as a public health person, as an infectious disease doctor, of 44 healthy people who are fully vaccinated who may have a little virus in their nose on a highly sensitive test,” Gandhi told KPIX reporter Andrea Nakano.

“It is not an outbreak, it does not mean they got sick, and it does not mean the vaccines don’t work. It means that our public health strategy in this case was off, and they were doing mass testing of people who didn’t need it.”

Ghandi said she wasn’t surprised by the case count, which was revealed by BerkeleyPublic Health. The number represents about one-third of the football program, including players, coaches and staff.

Approximately 25 players have tested positive. Multiple sources told the Hotline that only a handful were symptomatic.

The football program is 99.5% vaccinated, according to athletic director Jim Knowlton.

“The CDC has been clear that if you feel well, and you’re vaccinated, then there’s no reason to test regularly,” Gandhi told KPIX. “This is not a CDC recommendation to do vast asymptomatic testing of vaccinated people.”

However, it is the policy of Berkeley Public Health, under certain circumstances.

According to the university’s website:

“An outbreak is defined by Cal/OSHA as three or more employee cases in an exposed work group in a 14 day period … In addition, during an outbreak, UC Berkeley works closely with Berkeley Public Health who may include additional requirements such as testing of all members of an exposed work group at a prescribed frequency.”

Once a few cases were detected, the entire Cal football program was directed to test using highly sensitive PCR machines, which are considered the gold standard but can detect inactive COVID virus dating back 90 days.

The result of the team-wide testing was enough positive results to force two dozen players to miss the Arizona game last weekend.