Residents flock to pod testing

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Residents flock to pod testing

Tue, 04/21/2020 - 13:43
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Health department officials conduct 159 tests in Yukon, awaiting results

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By the lines that formed last week at the Canadian County Health Department’s pod testing site, residents are still highly concerned about contracting the COVID-19 virus.

During the four hours of testing at Yukon Middle School, health-care workers swabbed 159 people for the virus, an average of just under 40 tests per hour.

“We are still doing testing at both health departments in El Reno and Yukon by appointments but there are just so many of those that can be scheduled each day.

“There was a need for the pod site because there was a long list of people on the waiting list in Yukon to get tested. We hope this will take the burden off the appointment testing,” said Rae Johnson, a public information officer for the Oklahoma State Health Department’s COVID-19 Incident Command.

Johnson said they have not ruled out having another drive-up pod site.

“We hope that we can continue appointment testing without having a backlog, but if the need arises and we cannot keep up with the appointments, we will consider another pod testing site,” said Johnson.

Johnson said the pod testing site had to be shut down after four hours and there were residents left untested. However, the health department did not run out of testing supplies.

“We did have to turn some people away. Our testing stopped at 2 p.m. and we had to shut the gates. We did continue the testing for all the cars that were inside the gate before time stopped.

“I don’t know the number of people we had to turn away,” said Johnson.

All the tests were sent to the Oklahoma State laboratory in Stillwater, but Johnson was not sure how long the results will take. She added no results had been received by the health department on Monday.

“We have not seen any results yet and we don’t know the time it will take to get them back. We may start seeing some soon but we will not report to the state until we get all the results back and the patients have been notified,” said Johnson.

Maggie Jackson, District 2 Community Engagement director, said all 159 patients tested at the drive-up pod site will be contacted with test results – negative or positive.

District 2 consists of health departments for Canadian, Logan, Kingfisher, Blaine, Major, Garfield, Alfalfa and Grant counties.

“At this point everyone will get a phone call. We have gotten some results back but we are unsure if those are the results from the drive-up pod testing or from those taken at the health department,” said Jackson.

Jackson said while addresses of those tested at the drive-thru site were taken, the city-by-city breakdown of those would not be released until after the results are reported to the state.

On Monday, the state of Oklahoma had 2,680 confirmed cases of the virus and 143 deaths. The statewide growth rate was at 3 percent. Sixty-four of the state’s 77 counties have at least one confirmed case of the virus.

Canadian County’s number of cases jumped from 63 to 75 in three days, while the death toll remains at three. Fifty-one of those confirmed cases were listed Monday as recovered.

The state said El Reno currently has eight active cases, one death and four people have recovered.

While Johnson said Monday’s numbers show only 25 active cases in the county, it’s still too early to say that the spread of COVID-19 is slowing.

“It’s hard to say if it's slowing down or not. I think the pod testing results will be telling. The state had a 3 percent growth rate from Sunday to Monday and that was less than it was last week.

“The rate fluctuates so I would wait and see the results from this pod testing before we get too hopeful,” said Johnson.

Both women say residents that missed out on the pod testing can still call either health department sites to make an appointment.

The state has relaxed some of the requirements for testing.

“They just have to show one symptom of either a cough, fever or shortness of breath. Also, if someone has been in direct contact with a person who has had a positive test for COVID-19, we will let them get tested,” said Johnson.