Free walk-up coronavirus testing site opens Friday at Rainier Beach High School

SEATTLE — A walk-up coronavirus testing site in Seattle will open Friday morning at Rainier Beach High School.

The city has been testing about 2,000 people per day at two drive-up locations in north and south Seattle. The new testing site at Rainier Beach High School is expected to have the ability to test 800 more patients per day and is walk-up only. Parking is available in the school’s parking lot.

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A testing drive-thru was previously set up at Rainier Beach High School in April.

“The combination of testing and our actions is saving lives, but we also must face the reality that we will be dealing with this pandemic until at least next year,” Mayor Durkan said in a news release.

The testing is free, but people must still register online.

Officials said the Rainier Beach location was picked to help prevent a gap in services, as nearly 40% of households in the area are comprised of Black and Latinx families – the most acutely impacted by COVID-19 and representing the highest COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.

The Rainier Beach location will be open on Mondays and Wednesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The test being offered at this site is the nasal pharyngeal test, the one that goes up your nose to swab the back of your throat.

“It’s a necessary evil,” said Jim Green, who was getting a test on the first day of opening.

“It’s a quick shock. Ugh, ugh, and I’m like okay I’m done, I’m done,” said Roxanne Buchannan, who also got a test Friday. “It’s needed in the south end. It’s important so people can at least know there’s a place in their neighborhood they can get tested and feel safe about it,” she said.

“If you know you’ve been exposed to the virus or if you have symptoms, please stay home and away from others – except to go to your testing appointment,” said Patty Hayes, Director of Public Health – Seattle & King County. “By self-quarantining, you’re protecting family and friends and helping us all succeed at re-opening King County.”

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The tests then get sent to UW Medicine Virology Labs to be processed. The lab says they can now process 6,000 to 8,000 tests a day and is continuing to increase capacity and will have no issue in processing the additional tests.

However, UW Medicine said the nationwide spike in COVID cases has also increased the demand for testing, which is putting pressure on some of their supplies.

Early on in the pandemic, the shortages were on swabs and the fluid needed to preserve the virus in tubes at the test sites. Now, they’re having a tough time ordering all the reagents they need inside the labs, as well as getting enough pipette tips, which are used to move samples.

“Every one of those reagents are spoken for around the world right now. Many of those of late have been converted to states where the need is more urgent,” said Geoffery Biard, the interim chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at UW School of Medicine.

Still, Biard says they’re expecting to ramp up test processing capacity to about 10,000 per day by the end of August.

UW Medicine’s mobile Covid testing van was first serving the Rainier Beach neighborhood at the high school. Now with the city’s new test site, that mobile van will be able to provide easy access to testing to another neighborhood in need. The exact location is still being determined.

Cox Media Group