Whatcom’s demand for COVID-19 testing has tripled in a month — how are sites keeping up?
In one month’s time, the demand for COVID-19 testing in Whatcom County more than tripled, as the region wrestles with its fifth surge of the pandemic, due in large part to the more transmissible delta variant.
Between Aug. 12-18, which are the most recent dates testing data has been finalized on the Washington State Department of Health COVID Dashboard, Whatcom County averaged approximately 3,380 COVID tests (molecular and antigen combined) per day.
Only one month earlier (July 12-18), the county averaged just under 1,019 tests per day.
Whatcom’s demand for testing is the highest the county has seen since mid-January, according to the state’s data.
And that demand is making it more difficult to schedule an appointment.
A check Friday, Sept. 3, for available testing slots at the Bellingham International Airport testing facility on scheduling website TestDirectly.com shows no open slots available until Wednesday, Sept. 8.
Granted, the site, which is run jointly by Northwest Laboratories and the Whatcom County Health Department, is closed Monday for Labor Day, but that still means testing slots are being scheduled at least five days out.
As of Thursday, the state reported Whatcom County residents have been tested 318,079 times, including 17,305 tests during the first 18 days of August.
Seeing heavy demand
Perhaps most frustrating, the health department said, is that many of the slots that are being scheduled aren’t being used.
“We continue to see heavy demand for testing services at the Bellingham International Airport location, and the no-show rate we’ve seen in recent weeks has exacerbated the situation,” health department spokesperson Jennifer Moon said in an email to The Bellingham Herald. “We are seeing 30-50 no-shows every day. Some days, we have as many as 60 or 70 people failing to keep their appointment.
“If people no longer need their appointment, we ask that they go into their Test Directly account and cancel their appointment. This frees up the slot for someone else.”
Despite that difficulty, Moon said the health department is still able to make arrangements to test people who become symptomatic or believe they have been in close contact with someone who was infected.
“We are still requesting that people wanting tests for travel purposes make an appointment at a pharmacy or other testing location, make an appointment at TestDirectly.com/Whatcom, or call the Northwest Laboratory call center at 360-543-6904,” Moon wrote. “The Health Department cannot assist with appointments for travel purposes.”
Moon said the health department has heard anecdotes that testing slots at area pharmacies also have been filling up.
But getting residents who are symptomatic or have been possibly exposed tested is even more important, considering Whatcom’s test positivity rate is inching up.
For the Aug. 12-18 range, approximately 7.4% of molecular and antigen tests were positive for COVID-19 (6.6% of molecular tests were positive). From July 12-18, Whatcom had 3.8% of all tests return positive (4.0% molecular).
Meeting the demand
In an effort to help meet the growing demand for testing, Northwest Laboratories on Wednesday, Sept. 1, began extending hours on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturday to offer more testing slots.
The airport testing site begins testing at 7 a.m. with the extended hours, Test Directly shows.
“We are starting slow to allow new staff time to train,” Northwest Laboratories Chief Operating Officer Jenny Bull told The Herald in an email. “Currently this opens up an additional 66 appointments on each of those days and will increase to an additional 220 in a week or so once we get staff trained and working at full capacity.
“We plan to continue to recruit staff with the intention of opening early a full 7 days/week. Once fully functional, this will open 220 appointments each day for a total of additional capacity of 1,540 appointments each week.”
The airport testing facility is currently averaging between 600 and 650 collections per day, Bull reported, with another 250 to 300 collected at Northwest Laboratory’s Burlington location.
Northwest Laboratory currently has 31 employees dedicated to its three drive-through locations, according to Bull, “with a few more positions yet to fill.”
Testing volumes at the lab have increased by approximately 100% in the past few weeks, Bull said, as demand rises — both because of increased COVID activity in the region and people seeking testing so that they can travel.
“We surpassed two million completed tests on (Sept. 26 at the lab) and are ready for this latest surge to be over,” Bull wrote, reminding the community to “wear their masks and move about the community safely and responsibly!”
Despite the increasing demand, Bull said that incidents of poor behavior at the airport testing site by those wanting to be tested, including threats, profanity, insults, deliberately running over signage that she reported nearly a month ago, have decreased.
Bull credited new processes at that the testing locations to better communicate with those seeking testing and added security has helped, but added, “It is still the most helpful when patients have scheduled their appointment prior to showing up at testing locations and that they follow instructions provided to obtain copies of their results.”
