Security watches as Providence medical personnel conduct a drive-thru COVID-19 test at Hawks Prairie in Lacey in April.
The average person looking to get tested for COVID-19 at the Providence drive-thru in Hawks Prairie used to wait 20-30 minutes, according to the health care provider.
As of last week, wait times had stretched to about an hour and a half.
That's one of many examples Chris Thomas and Angela Maki, both spokespeople for Providence, provided for how a recent uptick in local cases of the disease caused by the coronavirus has been reflected at the testing site. Thomas and Maki shared their observations in a phone interview with The Olympian last week.
The site had been averaging about 200 tests per day, but that's gone up by about 50, Thomas said. The site hit an all-time high Monday, Oct. 5, when 352 people were tested. About 75 of the people tested per day are there in preparation for surgery at Providence Centralia or St. Peter hospitals, Maki pointed out.
The number of people the site can handle per day is limited by a deadline of 5 p.m., when a courier picks up samples to bring to Lab Corp for processing, Thomas said. The drive-thru closes at 4:30 p.m. for that reason. In the last couple of weeks, it's become common for staff to turn away some of the cars in line, asking them to come back the following morning.
Providence runs the site in partnership with Thurston County, which funds it with federal CARES Act money, and it tests people who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19. Close contacts of people who have tested positive or who think they've been exposed are also eligible, according to Thomas.
Schelli Slaughter, director of Thurston County Public Health and Social Services, confirmed it's the largest public drive-thru testing site in the county.
The weeks ending Oct. 4 and Oct. 11 saw the highest and second-highest one-week totals of new COVID-19 cases in Thurston County residents since the pandemic began.
Last Friday, the county saw its biggest one-day rise in new cases yet, with 47 cases, and the weekly total had surpassed its recently established high by Saturday, county data show. Data on the state's risk-assessment dashboard shows the percent of positive tests rose to 3.7% for the week of Sept. 29-Oct. 5, well above the 2% target set by the state.
That's another trend Providence also has seen at its site. A rolling average for people tested at Providence's drive-thru was consistently 1.7% positive over several months, Maki said, before rising to 2.3%. The week before they talked to The Olympian, that number had jumped to 2.6%, she said.
Out of the 15 outbreaks at congregate care settings in the county since the beginning of the pandemic, six were ongoing as of Saturday.
"We're definitely really concerned about the rise in cases, the percent of positive testing over a week, the recent outbreaks in congregate care facilities," Slaughter said, which are indications that transmission of COVID-19 in the community is on the rise, making it harder for Public Health officials to know exactly where people are picking up the virus.
Going into the winter months which are already cold and flu season -- when people also are more likely to stay indoors as well as celebrate holidays with family -- officials are concerned. Slaughter pointed out that people are experiencing "COVID fatigue" and want a sense of their normal life.
"But we can't let our guard down at this point, or it's going to get much further out of control," Slaughter said.
Get your flu shot, she said, and don't wait to get tested if you start experiencing even one COVID-19 symptom. Department officials have said they believe people waiting to get tested during the recent wildfires -- Providence's testing site closed when it got smoky -- contributed to a rise in cases after Labor Day.
"What we saw is people who tested positive during that surge had been symptomatic for some time," Slaughter said.
There are several places to get tested in Thurston County, and Slaughter said Public Health is working toward a goal of ensuring at least one community-based testing site is open each day of the week.
The county recently purchased two ambulances with federal CARES Act funding, according to public discussions, and are in the process of modifying the vehicles so they can serve as mobile testing units. The department has advertised no-cost community testing sites on its social media channels and there's a calendar of locations available on its website.
While the Providence testing site has been increasingly busy, Maki and Thomas report that the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Providence St. Peter, the region's biggest hospital, has stayed pretty consistent. Over the last month, the hospital has housed fewer than 10 people at a time who have tested positive for the disease, Maki said.
Providence also houses a small number of COVID-positive patients from Lewis County at its Centralia hospital, according to the spokespeople, while St. Peter gets referrals from the five-county region.
The hospital has been "very full" for years, Maki said, which is why the state approved it for a 52-bed expansion. But that doesn't mean there isn't room if there's a spike in COVID-19 patients, they say.
The hospital has surge capacity and a plan that would allow it to open areas that aren't currently used as inpatient areas and transition them to serve that purpose. Other spaces could become ICU space, and there are additional ventilators, according to Maki.
Slaughter confirmed that the county has 20% surge capacity in its hospitals in the event there's a surge, which was a requirement to enter Phase 3 of reopening.
"We're prepared to meet the needs of the community should a surge of COVID patients need hospitalizations," Maki said.
Slaughter said she feels OK about hospital capacity going into winter and that Public Health officials are in regular communication with the hospitals.
However, Thurston County's hospitals serve as regional hospitals for other counties, and what happens in the region can impact our system "really, really quickly," she said. At this time of year, Slaughter said it's typical for hospitals and their emergency departments to run at maximum occupancy even without a pandemic.
The county is seeing outbreaks in high-risk, vulnerable populations, such as those at long-term care facilities, and those illnesses are more likely to lead to hospitalizations and deaths. Officials also worry about health care workers getting sick -- and while supply chains are strong now, personal protective equipment such as masks could come under stress.
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