Here’s why Whatcom health officials say they’re lowering barriers to COVID-19 testing
The Whatcom County Health Department is operating a new drive-thru testing site at Civic Athletic Complex to remove the barrier of first getting a doctor’s order.
Up to 300 people could be tested for COVID-19 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, with a reassessment of the service later. People don’t need to sign up ahead of time or pay, and they can be tested even if they don’t have symptoms or health insurance.
For months, the Health Department has been saying that people can and should get tested for COVID-19 even if their symptoms are mild, because testing was available in Whatcom County — unlike the early days of the pandemic.
At least 11 health care organizations here regularly provide testing and at least 2,558 people can be tested each week, said Erika Lautenbach, the Health Department director, in a media briefing on July 1.
That’s “by any standard a robust testing capacity,” she said.
But testing in Whatcom County required people to have a doctor’s order, and that appears to have slowed the process, judging by the number of Whatcom residents who traveled to Skagit for testing.
Whatcom residents received nearly 26% — or 755 — of the 2,953 tests done June 22-July 2 at the site overseen by the Skagit County Health Department, according to information provided to The Bellingham Herald by Skagit officials.
An average of 366 Whatcom County residents have been tested per day in the past week ending July 3, according to the state Department of Health’s Risk Assessment Dashboard.
Bellingham-based Northwest Laboratory has said it has the materials and the ability to analyze more than 10,000 tests a day and the ability to get results back quickly, so testing supplies and turnaround haven’t been issues here — as they have been elsewhere.
Jenny Bull, chief operating officer for Northwest Laboratory, said on July 1 that the lab was running 3,000 tests per day.
“Most of those are not from Whatcom County,” she said.
Northwest Laboratory is the only lab to process specimens locally, although others such as Quest, LabCorp and Shriver Lab also are part of the equation but process elsewhere.
Skagit County officials opened their drive-thru testing site to the public at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon on April 27. In mid-May, they expanded testing to people who don’t have symptoms, known as asymptomatic, of COVID-19, but wanted to be tested.
Despite the availability of tests in Whatcom, some residents have told The Bellingham Herald that they’ve struggled to get tested even though they’re ill. In one case, a woman was in between doctors because of a change in her health insurance.
In another instance, Bellingham resident Jane Ligon, 24, said she went to Skagit in June to get tested after continuing to struggle with ongoing symptoms that included low-grade fever, sore throat on some days and headaches. She and her partner John Mohr, who is immunocompromised, previously had tested negative for COVID-19. It was a struggle to get that test as well, she said.
She drove to Skagit for her second test because she was reluctant to go to her health care provider to get the doctor’s referral if she was ill with COVID-19, and when she checked elsewhere in Whatcom for a test, she had to wait two weeks for an appointment.
“It was that difficult for us to get a test here, which seems to be the opposite of the whole point of testing,” Ligon said.
Of her test in Skagit: “It was really quick. It was very organized. They seemed to really know what they were doing.”
Her second test came back negative as well, she said. Her partner didn’t get a second test.
People also told the Health Department that they had to wait about two weeks to be tested if they were trying to return to work or get one for a job, such as before they head out on a fishing vessel, according to Lautenbach.
Sea Mar Community Health Centers, which began providing free coronavirus testing every Tuesday and Thursday starting June 23, including to those who weren’t Sea Mar patients, had an initial crush of demand at its Bellingham clinic.
It had conducted 75 tests during its first three community testing events, each lasting three hours.
“For our pre-booked appointments, we are about four weeks out. Though we accept walk-ups every day, that number tends to outnumber the scheduled appointments,” said Aaron Ignac, health center administrator, to The Bellingham Herald on June 30.
At that time, he said Sea Mar was averaging about 25 tests a day on the days that it’s offering COVID-19 testing.
“We could definitely do more tests per day if we carved out more provider and nursing staff time, but providing primary care to our own patients remains the top priority,” he said.
So, public health officials are launching the drive-thru testing site at Civic.
“Our primary goal is to make sure that no matter what the barrier is for people to get tested that we remove that,” Lautenbach said, adding that whether it’s the expense of getting the telehealth appointment and paying the co-pay or the inconvenience, officials don’t want it there.
The new testing service is a joint effort of Whatcom Unified Command, the Whatcom County Health Department, Northwest Laboratory, the city of Bellingham, county EMS services and the county’s medical reserve corps.
People with COVID-19 have reported a wide range of symptoms, which range from mild to severe illness.
Symptoms include:
▪ Fever or chills.
▪ Cough.
▪ Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.
▪ Fatigue.
▪ Muscle or body aches.
▪ Headache.
▪ Loss of taste or smell that’s new.
▪ Sore throat.
▪ Congestion or runny nose.
▪ Nausea or vomiting.
▪ Diarrhea.
Symptoms may appear two days to 14 days after exposure to the virus.
