A temporary change in policy for UW Medicine, which is the provider for the city’s COVID-19 testing site in West Seattle, among others. Starting Tuesday, testing at these sites will only be available for people who have symptoms. Here’s the announcement:
Beginning January 4, 2022, UW Medicine will be prioritizing COVID-19 testing for people with appointments who have symptoms of respiratory illness or who have a known exposure to COVID-19. Testing for people without symptoms, including before and after travel or gatherings, will not be available due to the high volume of omicron cases that are being processed in our laboratory.
Because each positive sample must undergo additional testing, the recent surge in positive tests limits the total number of samples that we can handle. We apologize for this inconvenience and will continue to monitor testing capacity and adjust prioritization as this current surge of COVID-19 evolves.
Again, this affects UW Medicine’s community testing sites, including the one at Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Complex in West Seattle. In a media briefing this morning, UW Medicine explained that with the additional testing that positive samples require, it can only handle about half its current volume in a timely manner. But they also say this could change quickly so they may be able to start testing asymptomatic people again soon.
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