Here’s how testing, tracing, masks and social distancing are paying off for Whatcom
Whatcom County has seen a recent decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases, and Whatcom County Health Department Director Erika Lautenbach said a number of factors have likely played a role.
“Because this is a global event, things can change, and we’re certainly not out of the woods yet,” Lautenbach said during an online press conference Tuesday, Aug. 18. “One single, large event could cause another spike in cases, but we have been encouraged by what we have seen.”
What the health department has seen is no double-digit increases in the daily number of new coronavirus cases in more than a week — the last was the 12 new cases reported Aug. 8.
In the nine days since, Whatcom County has averaged 5.2 new cases per day — only slightly above the self-established goal of four new cases per day to meet the state’s Safe Start requirement of fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period.
In the latest risk assessment data released by the state, Whatcom County is missing that goal with an average of 47.9 new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks, but that is less than half the state’s overall average of 109.9 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days.
The risk assessment dashboard also shows only six counties in the state have better averages than Whatcom’s — San Juan (5.8), Columbia (0.0), Garfield (45.0), Jefferson (18.8), Island (13.0) and Wahkiakum (0.0) — and combined those six counties’ populations are more than 83,000 people fewer than the 229,247 people living in Whatcom, according to 2019 U.S. Census estimates.
Lautenbach credited a number of areas for factoring into Whatcom’s recent improvement, including increased testing with rapid results, contact tracing efforts, education on how to properly isolate and quarantine, the work of area businesses and government agencies to limit exposure and individuals maintaining social distancing and wearing face coverings.
“Those preventative measures have been incredibly important, and we remain reliant on the community to continue to utilize those practices,” Lautenbach said.
Mobile testing update
In addition to the encouraging news about fewer new cases, Whatcom Unified Command Incident Commander Scott McCreery said Whatcom’s new low-barrier mobile testing trial program, now in its second week, has seen some success, as well.
As previously reported, the program was established so that anyone can make an appointment and get tested, including people without insurance or a physician referral and there is no cost to be tested. Testing is available from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 18-19, and Friday and Saturday, Aug. 21-22, at 211 E. Champion Street to those who make an appointment online to be tested.
“What we’re learning is we’ve overcome some technological challenges we thought would be a limiting factor, and what we’re now finding is getting the volunteers we need to staff the process at this time is the limiting factor,” McCreery said during the press briefing.
Testing in the program requires approximately 62 volunteer shifts (each 4.5 hours long) per week to operate, McCreery said. That’s a far cry from the 328 volunteer shifts that were required over four days during the county’s drive-thru testing program at Civic Stadium, when more than 1,800 people were tested in July.
“We took the lessons from what we learned from that program and began looking at what we could do to provide that service in a more sustainable way,” McCreery said.
A big part of what was learned, he said, was that they could reduce the number of volunteer shifts needed as well as the time it took for people to actually get tested by setting up online registration through TestDirectly. Testing also can be set up by calling 360-778-6075 between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily, according to an earlier news release on the program, and more information is available at the health department’s website.
McCreery said with appointments now required, most people could be tested in five minutes, with none taking more than a half-hour — a big improvement on the two to three hours that it took during the Civic Stadium drive-thru trial.
The Champion Street test site was set up to test 240 people during this trial phase but will be able to serve up to 480 people once other testing sites in each of Whatcom’s seven school district regions are up and running.
McCreery on Tuesday announced the county’s drive-thru locations in addition to the Champion Street location in Bellingham that will be used:
▪ Blaine: Birch Bay Bible Community Church parking lot, 4460 Bay Road.
▪ Ferndale: Ferndale Events Center parking lot, 5715 Barrett Road.
▪ Lynden: Bender Fields parking lot, 8770 Bender Road.
▪ Meridian: Guru Nanak Gursikh Gurudwara temple parking lot, 176 E. Pole Road.
▪ Mount Baker: Old Nooksack River Casino parking lot, 5048 Mount Baker Highway.
▪ Nooksack Valley: Christ Fellowship church parking lot, 1208 E. Main Street, Everson.
No time frame on when those locations might be available for testing was given in the briefing, though McCreery said Whatcom Unified Command, the multi-governmental agency that’s directing local pandemic response, is committed to having testing sites in all seven regions.
