KING COUNTY, Wash. — Just days before Christmas, a growing number of people in King County are seeking COVID-19 tests.
This surge comes as the omicron variant is spreading quickly across the nation. On Monday, it was announced that omicron is the most prominent variant in the United States.
Officials from UW Medicine said the same can be said in King County, where 70% of new COVID cases are the omicron variant.
“We do know that there is a high demand for testing right now,” explained Dennis Worsham, interim director of Public Health - Seattle & King County.
Cars lined several city blocks near the testing site in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood as people waited to get tested. We witnessed numerous people trying to cut in line, which led to at least one tense interaction between test seekers.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan urged kindness as people sought COVID tests.
“As depleted and exhausted as people are - and the holidays are always hard anyways - people just need to take a deep breath and exercise kindness," Durkan said. "You will make it through the line, you will get tested.”
COVID tests are hard to find. Many stores in western Washington are out of the at-home tests and schedules at some King County testing sites are full.
“UW Medicine runs 11 testing sites across the Puget Sound region,” explained Dr. Alex Greninger with UW Medicine and Virology. “We have a high volume site at Lake Sammamish State Park that just opened last week and another high volume site that opened in Shoreline last month. Those sites ... would have the shortest wait times right now.”
Greninger said during a Monday press conference that he was able to buy at-home tests online.
“It is a little bit more of a hunt," Greninger said. "I’m not saying it’s always easy, but still, it’s possible to find these things.”
Currently, Public Health - Seattle & King County doesn’t have plans to add more testing sites.
“We have prepared as much as what we can to be ready for right now, this week, today is the day we have marshaled as many of our resources and we expect the next several weeks to be at this very, very high level," Greninger said.