By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The popularity of four mass COVID-19 testing events last week in Lincoln County has the county’s public health director looking for ways to bring more on-demand testing to the area.
Some 1,140 people were tested during four, six-hour drive-through events in Waldport (238), Newport (352), Lincoln City (351) and Toledo (169). And long lines of cars seemed to discourage many others from getting a free, self-administered test, Public Health Director Rebecca Austen said this week in an interview with YachatsNews.
That demand has Austen contacting large retailers and medical laboratories to see if they can bring on-demand COVID-19 testing to Lincoln County.
Currently the only COVID-19 tests available in Lincoln County are through Samaritan Health Services hospitals in Newport and Lincoln City and require a medical provider’s order saying the patient is displaying coronavirus symptoms.
“We saw that the community wants more testing after the strong response to the mass tests last week,” Austen said.
She has contacted Kroger, the parent company of Fred Meyer, Walgreens, and Rite-Aide to see if they might bring testing that they are already doing in large, metropolitan areas to their stores in Lincoln County. Rite-Aide has rolled out testing across the country the past six months and recently started the service in Corvallis.
But, Austen said, “None of them have any plans.”
“It’s the problem with rural areas – to get the attention of large corporations to remember us here,” she said. “We’ve been at this for 10 months and still we’re scrambling to get enough tests.”
Austen said Legacy Labs in Newport, a part of the Portland-based Legacy Health system, expressed some interest in offering the service. It currently does drug and other lab tests.
Lincoln County numbers plummet
The number of COVID-19 tests in Lincoln County has dropped steadily since the big outbreak at Pacific Seafood in June and until last week averaged about 250 a week, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
The Oregonian newspaper reported last week that the number of Oregon residents tested for coronavirus has barely budged amid a record-setting wave of infections, with health care systems and state officials failing to deliver at the time of greatest need.
Roughly 45,000 Oregonians were tested the first week of November, according to preliminary state data. That’s barely more than the summer peak in July, the newspaper reported.
The difference now? More than 2½ times as many people are actively infected, cases are rising exponentially, and Gov. Kate Brown was so concerned she issued executive orders for a two-week freeze on many business and social activities.
Public health experts told The Oregonian that Oregon’s inadequate rate of coronavirus testing means a large number of cases have and continue to silently spread across the state, seeding new infections.
On Monday, a large contingent of Willamette Valley legislators sent Brown a letter demanding an immediate increase in statewide testing.
That was one of the purposes of the mass testing in Lincoln County last week – to better find out how many people without COVID-19 symptoms might still be carrying the virus.
The mass testings last week in Lincoln County came after a phone call to Austen from the Oregon Health Authority and were not the result of any workplace outbreak or other event.
“They just called up one day and asked us to take advantage of this,” said Austen. “I think they’re just trying to get more tests out there. We jumped on it.”
The logistics and six hours of testing each day was handled by staff from Portland-based Medical Teams International.
The positive case results from the mass testing began to surface last Friday when OHA reported 10 new cases in Lincoln County – the largest case spike in months. On Monday, Austen said half of the county’s 21 positive test results the past two weeks came from the 1,140 tests administered last week.
County health contact tracers quickly asked those with positive tests to immediately quarantine for 10-14 days
County, residents learned from Newport outbreak
Last June, Lincoln County had the highest per capita case rate in Oregon following the massive Pacific Seafood outbreak that spread into the Newport community. The virus got into a nursing home in Newport and long-term care facility in Lincoln City, contributing to the deaths of 11 people.
But there have been no coronavirus-related deaths since August and the county’s case rate and positivity rate have plummeted since.
Austen and others credit steps the county took after the outbreak – restrictions on lodging and dining, public health campaigns that urged residents and visitors to wear masks and social distance, and the willingness of most people to cooperate – with turning the county’s COVID-19 case rate around.
“I do think there is more understanding here because of the restrictions after the Pacific Seafood outbreak,” she said.
Now, county health officials are keeping a close eye on the positivity rate of COVID-19 tests coming back from labs. A low rate means that it is harder for the coronavirus to spread through a community.
As of Nov. 14, the last week for which data is available, the county’s test positivity rate was 1.8 percent. That should rise some as labs process swabs from the mass testings.
Oregon’s statewide positivity rate has jumped to nearly 12 percent from a goal of 5 percent. Union County has the highest rate at 34 percent; Multnomah County is at 11 percent.
“That’s why we’re really looking at this positivity rate closely and that’s why this testing was so important,” Austen told county commissioners Monday. “To really give us a flavor of what’s going on in our community as far as how many people are positive out there and don’t even know it.”