With COVID cases on rise, Whatcom health department to open second isolation facility
A sharp increase in COVID-19 cases is forcing the Whatcom County Health Department to open a second isolation facility for people who have tested positive for the virus and have nowhere else to go.
That isolation facility will be in the locker rooms at Civic Stadium, where Northwest Youth Services has been housing up to 25 homeless young adults.
“This is going to relieve a lot of stress at other facilities, in Base Camp and at the hospital,” Whatcom County Health Director Erika Lautenbach told the Bellingham City Council at a committee meeting Monday afternoon, Jan. 10.
Young adults who have been spending the night in the Civic Stadium with Northwest Youth Services supervision will now be staying in the classrooms at Maritime Heritage Park, Lautenbach said at the meeting.
The new isolation facility can accommodate up to 25 guests who are vulnerable members of the community and need a place to stay during their isolation period, according to a Health Department news release Monday.
The second isolation facility will be staffed by a health care provider who is under contract with the health department.
The move became necessary after an increase in cases filled the Byron Avenue isolation and quarantine facility to 100% with 55 people, the health department told The Bellingham Herald last week.
“As with the original isolation and quarantine facility at Byron Avenue, referrals to the new isolation facility will be made by public health nurses from the Health Department and community partners,” the health department’s release Monday stated.
The health department said donations cannot be accepted at the Civic Stadium site.
Last month, the city of Bellingham said that it was using the locker rooms at Civic Stadium in partnership with Northwest Youth Services and Whatcom County to open a Young Adult Winter Shelter.
Whatcom County opened its Byron Avenue isolation and quarantine site in late April as part of statewide guidelines for Washington counties to open more businesses and ease social-distancing requirements established in late March 2020 as the new coronavirus pandemic worsened. The site has 57 rooms with a capacity for 77 guests daily, according to earlier reporting in The Herald.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 4:14 PM.
