Weekly Covid-19 testing to continue in Birch Bay

Whatcom County plans to continue low-barrier Covid-19 testing at the Birch Bay Bible Community Church on Tuesday mornings in the coming weeks.

Last week, the county’s mobile testing program – run by the health department and Whatcom Unified Command (WUC) – expanded to offer free Covid-19 testing that doesn’t require insurance or a physician’s referral at Birch Bay Bible Community Church, at 4660 Bay Road, and five other new locations throughout the county. Tests are available by appointment only and can be scheduled online at testdirectly.com/whatcom.

WUC public information officer Amy Cloud said in an email that the county plans to continue to follow the publicized testing schedule at the six testing sites in the upcoming weeks. The program provides a testing site inside the border of each school district in the county.

The health department and WUC perform tests in Birch Bay on Tuesdays between 9 a.m. and noon. Test dates and registration will open weekly on Saturdays at testdirectly.com, health department director Erika Lautenbach said in an August 25 media briefing.

If a change needs to be made to the testing schedule, Cloud said the health department and WUC would announce the change as soon as they become aware.

Those with insurance must provide insurance information for billing purposes when scheduling an appointment. The program is designed for drive-through testing, but it can accommodate people who don’t have a vehicle. To be tested without a car, call 370/778-6075. To schedule a test in a language other than English, call 360/778-6075.

As of September 1, 1,102 people in Whatcom County have tested positive for Covid-19 and 39 people have died from the virus, according to the Washington State Department of Health. Six people in the county were hospitalized last month, according to state data.

As of September 1, Whatcom County’s rate of new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks was 30.2. That number has declined by three cases in the last week and is getting closer to the state’s goal of 25 new cases per 100,000 people in a two-week period, which, before governor Jay Inslee paused reopening indefinitely on July 28, was a metric for counties to be able to apply for a higher phase with fewer restrictions.

The Blaine school district area has the highest rate of new cases in the past two weeks at 40 per 100,000 people, with a total of 66 cases, according to the county’s Covid-19 data.

Case counts were increasing statewide when Inslee announced that counties could no longer move to higher phases in the state’s Safe Start Washington plan. While the rate of cases declined through August, the state hasn’t revisited its decision to pause reopening.