People with mild COVID-19 symptoms can get tested in Skagit without a doctor’s order
Whatcom County residents with mild symptoms can get tested for COVID-19 without a doctor’s order, if they’re willing to travel to Skagit County.
Testing capacity in Whatcom County has increased, the health department said Monday, April 27, allowing people who have mild symptoms to be tested. But they still must have permission from a health care provider to be tested.
Skagit County officials opened their drive-thru testing to the public at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon on Monday, April 27. A total of 193 adults were tested from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the first day, according to Bronlea Mishler, spokesperson for Skagit’s Unified Command.
Up to 200 adults can be tested each day at the site, Mishler said to The Bellingham Herald on Tuesday, April 28.
The state public health lab, as well as Northwest Laboratory in Bellingham, are providing collection kits and testing analysis, according to Mishler.
Results come back within 24 to 72 hours.
In Skagit, Mishler said testing was opened to the public after first responders and health care workers were tested last week on April 21-23, a period that also served as a dry run for the larger volume of testing that started on Monday.
Testing is overseen by the Skagit County Health Department, but people being tested will be swabbing themselves.
Mishler said that won’t be done via nasopharyngeal swab, which is inserted through the nose and pushed in to collect secretions from the uppermost part of the throat, behind the nose. That can be uncomfortable.
For this test, people will swab the inside of their nostrils. The results are accurate, according to Mishler.
Testing has been expanded to those with mild symptoms, unlike earlier in the pandemic, because testing supplies have become more available, according to public health officials.
And ramping up testing is a must as efforts begin to ease the state’s stay-at-home order, which is in effect through May 4 for now.
“We realized that this is one of the many things we need to do to start reopening, or whatever word you want to use, to get back to a new normal. We need to have the capacity to test a lot of people and get those results back,” she said, adding that will allow public health officials to know where the virus is and to prevent it from spreading in the community.
In addition to people who refer themselves for testing because they have mild symptoms such as cough and/or fever, the Skagit site also is testing health care workers or first responders regardless of whether they have symptoms and people who were referred by their doctors, according to the Skagit County website.
So far, people who don’t have symptoms won’t be tested at the site in Skagit County because the national supply chain for testing supplies remains “fairly limited” as is the county’s testing capacity, Skagit officials said in a release on Tuesday.
The goal is to expand testing to people who are asymptomatic but, for now, the priority is to test people who have symptoms and who are first responders or health care workers, according to Mishler.
“Ask me this time next week, it might be different. It’s changing daily,” Mishler said.
Those who are asymptomatic — and how large of a group that is — have become a concern because studies show that people can be infected with the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and spread it, even though they don’t have symptoms themselves.
Testing isn’t limited to Skagit County residents, according to Mishler.
“If you would like to drive down from Bellingham and go through the test you can,” she said.
It takes about 15 minutes, from the time someone enters the parking lot to when they exit, Mishler said.
Before people can go to the Skagit County site for testing, they must first register at skagitcounty.net and answer screening questions, including about their symptoms.
For now, those questions about symptoms focus on cough, fever and difficulty breathing.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently expanded possible coronavirus symptoms to include chills, repeated shaking with chills, headache, muscle pain, sore throat and loss of taste or smell that’s new.
Mishler said Skagit officials talked on Tuesday about accommodating those new symptoms, but the online screening questions don’t yet include them.
People who can’t sign up online for the testing can register at a tent on site.
As for people who have symptoms of COVID-19 but don’t have insurance or can’t pay for it, the state health lab said it would cover the cost of testing, according to Mishler.
The Skagit County site is in the east parking lot of Skagit Valley College, 2405 E. College Way, Mount Vernon, near McIntyre Hall.
Testing occurs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
