King County: people with COVID-19 symptoms waiting days before getting tested

SEATTLE — “People on average are going about 3 days from the time they develop symptoms to when they test,” Dr. Matthew Golden said. “This is not really what we want.”

It was one of the concerns brought up by Seattle-King County Public Health officials on Thursday as they discussed their contact tracing efforts.

“If you develop symptoms, it is critical that you test right away and you go directly into isolation,” Golden said.

Since the end of April, King County has been moving COVID-19 contact tracing and investigations from the state level to a local team of 28 people.

“I think there are some advantages to doing this locally,” Golden said. “It’s very important to tie this effort to the testing -- and to the provision of the support services I was mentioning.”

Those services include providing medical support, groceries or other help for people in isolation so they don't need to leave their homes and risk infecting others.

List of COVID-19 testing sites in King County: https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/care/testing/locations.aspx

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