In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a multimillion-dollar state initiative to bring COVID-19 testing to the people and places with the least access: rural towns and disadvantaged inner-city neighborhoods.

California is now halting its expansion, citing costs, even as the state is getting walloped by record-setting spikes in new infections and double-digit increases in hospitalizations.

The state will no longer fund new testing sites, despite pleas from counties for additional assistance — and it has closed some locations and moved them elsewhere. It also has threatened to pull testing out of underutilized sites, according to nearly two dozen interviews with county public health officials.

While it’s early in the process, some winners and losers have emerged: El Dorado County, east of Sacramento, lost its testing site in the town of Shingle Springs in June because it couldn’t fill enough appointment slots, while Fresno County gained a site that had been pulled from elsewhere, said its health officer, Dr. Rais Vohra.

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