Whatcom County to offer mobile testing for COVID-19 starting Monday, Aug. 10
Whatcom County is launching mobile testing for COVID-19 starting Monday, Aug. 10.
The first efforts will be a field test as the Whatcom County Health Department and Whatcom Unified Command continue to work out ways to bring low-barrier testing, meaning people don’t first have to go to the doctor and get a referral, to residents throughout the county.
What they will be working on next week is a soft launch of the software that will be used to register people for COVID-19 testing at future mobile sites, according to Amy Cloud, spokesperson for Whatcom Unified Command.
“We are not accepting registrations for next week’s testing because we already have a full queue. We are working with those who are close contacts of known cases, as well as those who have already contacted the Health Department about testing because they don’t have insurance or a primary care provider,” Cloud said to The Bellingham Herald.
She added: “Previously, we had been referring many to Northwest Labs for testing, under Dr. Stern’s standing order. So for next week’s pilot, people that we would have had to refer out will be tested via this new system.”
Dr. Greg Stern is the Whatcom County health officer.
Mobile testing is expected to be fully operational within two weeks of the launch, according to a news release from the Whatcom County Health Department on Friday, Aug. 7. It will run five days a week.
Officials said this model will allow up to 320 people to be tested a day.
Testing locations will include at least one site within each school district in Whatcom County, the health department said.
More details about testing locations, hours and how to register — which will be online and on the phone — will be provided in announcements in the coming weeks, according to the release.
Cloud said officials will share details once they work through the software to “ensure there aren’t any hitches.”
In July, Whatcom County operated a pilot drive-thru site at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium that tested 1,814 people over four days. An appointment wasn’t required but the wait to get tested was as long as three hours.
The price tag totaled $126,000 for two weekends and required the help of 50 volunteers as well as staff for 328 worker shifts, according to the Health Department.
Officials called the pilot drive-thru testing, which couldn’t accommodate online scheduling, a model that was “unsustainable,” according to the Health Department in a previous Bellingham Herald article.
They hope the mobile COVID-19 testing pilot will help with those two issues in two ways:
▪ Booking an appointment to get tested will make for wait times that are shorter and more predictable. The expected wait time will be five to 15 minutes, according to the news release.
▪ Reducing the amount of staffing needed.
“If it works as expected, the new model will require less staffing — though still not insignificant — and take less time,” Cloud said. “In the initial pilot, not only did it take a massive effort to prepare and get it running, it took staff and time to get each person’s information on site. Now that information will be processed in advance.”
Here’s what else you need to know about the mobile testing effort:
▪ Once established, testing will occur on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays throughout the county.
▪ You will automatically be notified when your test results are available. You’ll be able to access the results online within minutes of your test being processed. It still will take up to 24 to 72 hours from when your specimen is collected for the laboratory to process your test.
▪ If you don’t have internet access to book an appointment for testing, you can call from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week to schedule one. Whatcom Unified volunteers will staff the line.
▪ There’s no cost to those being tested at the mobile locations, just as there isn’t if you’re getting COVID-19 testing through your regular health care provider. Anyone can get tested.
Although Whatcom County is launching this mobile testing effort, officials continue to encourage residents to go to their regular health care providers for COVID-19 testing.
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 12:17 PM.
