UW Medicine reopens COVID test sites in Ballard, Lake Sammamish
(UW Medicine)
SEATTLE - UW Medicine is reopening two COVID-19 testing sites in the Puget Sound region, after closing them due to capacity concerns.
The hospital temporarily closed sites in Ballard and Lake Sammamish State Park on Jan. 4, citing test capacity limitations right as the omicron variant surged. Both sites reopened Monday, with COVID-19 cases only just starting to taper down, according to Department of Health data.
"We still are prioritizing symptomatic individuals as well as those who are a close contact of someone who has a known positive infection," said Dr. Patrick Mathias with UW Medicine. "Even though we are on the downslope, hopefully, with omicron cases there's still quite a bit of circulating infection in the community and we want to make sure that we can identify as many of those cases for those who are at highest risk."
COVID-19 cases linger at their highest point ever recorded in Washington, with hospitals straining at capacity, and a majority of their patients being unvaccinated. The seven-day cases rate among 100,000 population remains over 100 in every single county, a critical level.
"Our goal is to get people results within a day of them getting their samples collected," said Mathias.
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