FOLLOWUP: Parking-lot COVID-19 testing starts Friday at South Seattle College

| Coronavirus | Health | Puget Ridge | West Seattle news

As we first reported last week, a new weekly COVID-19 testing site is about to start up at South Seattle College (WSB sponsor) on Puget Ridge. We’ve been working all week to get additional details, and info just came in, as follows:

UW Medicine and the Seattle Dept. of Neighborhoods are opening a mobile COVID-19 testing site at South Seattle College’s main campus in West Seattle starting May 29. The testing site is open Fridays only, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. SSC agreed to be the host location to help improve testing access for the communities of south and southwest Seattle, and south King County.

Location & Time

When: Fridays only from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., beginning May 29

Where: South Seattle College’s North Parking Lot, accessed by Entry 1, located at 6000 16th Ave SW. (campus map here). Please Note: Visitors should only use Entry 1/North Parking Lot entrance. South Seattle College’s physical campus is otherwise closed to the public in response to COVID-19 with very limited exceptions for essential staff and programs approved by the state. The college is operating remotely until further notice and will run summer and fall quarter classes in accordance with public health guidelines.

Testing Site Details

Anyone experiencing the following symptoms can come to the testing site, speak with medical staff from UW Medicine and, if qualified for testing, get tested on-site:

Cough
Shortness or breath or difficulty breathing
Fever
Gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
Muscle Aches
Headaches
Chills
Sore throat
Runny nose
New loss of taste or smell

There is no cost to be tested. If you have health insurance UW Medicine will bill your insurance.

Walk-up and drive-up visitors are welcome. Please note due to King County Metro bus service reductions in response to the pandemic, the college does not currently have Route 125 or 128 service to campus. Visitors should only use Entry 1/ North Parking Lot Entrance, where UW Medicine staff will direct you.

Neighborcare Health also has been doing COVID-19 testing in West Seattle, outside its High Point clinic.

Maria M. May 29, 2020 (12:26 pm)

No antibody testing? A small something to offer those of us who had the coronavirus, took care of ourselves at home until we recovered and are now worried about going out again.

Katrina May 30, 2020 (9:34 am)

Antibody testing isn’t widely available enough yet to have public events like this. It’s also still unknown as to how much immunity (if any) one has if you have had C. COVID
Also John June 9, 2020 (9:08 am)

The antibody test are still 50% inaccurate. It provides false positives and false negatives 50% of the time. Extremely poor results. It’s recommended to wait until a better test is available. This was relayed to me by my provider Kaiser Permanente. I’ve also read the same. To date there’s no prove that having antibodies makes you immune.

DiverLaura May 29, 2020 (12:58 pm)

“There will be no cost for testing but if you have UW insurance we will bill your insurance”. That sounds kinda sketchy to me. Either there is no cost for the test or there is a cost for the test and its being covered by ??? If its being covered by ??? Then why are they billing our insurance? Is this going to be a case of double billing? Both getting paid by State or Feds for doing tests AND by our insurance?

Katrina May 30, 2020 (9:38 am)

They’d probably like to recoup some of the costs of testing so bill insurance when possible, but will offer the test to everyone regardless of their insurance status

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