2 COVID-19 swab-test sites reopen

UW Medicine has 15 COVID-19 testing locations in the Puget Sound region. Sites in Ballard and at Lake Sammamish State Park reopen today, Jan. 31, after being temporarily closed on Jan. 4 due to test capacity limitations at the height of the omicron variant’s surge. 

“Our goal is to get people results within a day of them getting their samples collected,” said Dr. Patrick Mathias, vice chair for clinical operations in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology.

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“We still are prioritizing symptomatic individuals as well as those who are a close contact of someone who has a known positive infection,” said Mathias. “Even though we are on the downslope, hopefully, with omicron cases there's still quite a bit of circulating infection in the community and we want to make sure that we can identify as many of those cases for those who are at highest risk.”