(Image: Seattle Fire)
Faced with inadequate testing resources and potential flare-ups in the outbreak among its most vulnerable populations in senior and long-term care facilities, Seattle says it is strategically deploying teams of first responders to help it quickly identify and move to control COVID-19 infections.
Seattle Fire introduced its two new Mobile Assessment Teams Tuesday after their deployment starting earlier this month:
Building on the landmark first-in-the-nation first responder testing facility, administered by first responders, Seattle Mayor Jenny A. Durkan and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins announced today that the City has created and deployed two Mobile Assessment Teams to test our most vulnerable, primarily focusing on senior and long-term care establishments at the forefront of the COVID-19 crisis.
Each Mobile Assessment Team is comprised of three SFD paramedics or EMTs. The department currently has a pool of approximately 20 personnel to utilize for testing, according to Tuesday’s announcement.
In place in the city since mid-April, the teams are deployed to locations determined in consultation with King County Public Health. Each team has the ability to test up to 120 individuals per day.
“With our limited testing capacity, I’ve advocated prioritizing testing for our most vulnerable residents, the people who care for them, and our first responders who are hard at work protecting us,” Mayor Jenny Durkan said about the strategy. “In Washington and across the country, we know that long term care facilities have been at the epicenter of COVID-19 with tens of thousands of cases of residents and workers.”
SFD Chief Harold Scoggins said the teams have focused on long-term care facilities.
“In Seattle, nearly half of COVID-related deaths have been associated with long-term care facilities and over 90% of deaths have been individuals who are older than 60. By implementing the Mobile Assessment Teams, we can utilize our trained paramedics and EMTs to test patients and staff at our most vulnerable facilities to help slow the transmission of this disease,” Scoggins said.
“Long-term care facilities have experienced the most significant proportion of COVID-19 cases. In Seattle, even with the limited testing resources available, nearly 15% of all long-term care facilities have reported active COVID-19 cases,” the announcement reads.
Through Sunday, 416 have died in King County related to COVID-19 with 749 deaths reported statewide.
CHS reported over the weekend on widely followed models showing the state and Seattle area COVID-19 infection rate continues to fall but is far from levels where it would be safe to fully lift distancing restrictions until a major increase in testing and contact tracing capabilities is put in place.
Friday, CHS reported on the way much testing continues to play out in Seattle — a community drive-thru testing clinic put in place to try to stamp after an outbreak was identified related to four deaths in the Central Area senior community.
At a “virtual town hall” last week focused on Capitol Hill and the Central District, Mayor Durkan called on President Trump to invoke executive powers to require the manufacture of COVID-19 testing kits.
The city says Mobile Assessment Teams have been deployed to three long-term care facilities, testing more than 500 individuals in the first two weeks of the project. They are set to visit at least six additional locations, SFD says, and will “evaluate the expansion of testing to serve the critical testing needs of high-risk populations.”
“Access to testing kits remains the biggest challenge to tracing the level of COVID-19 in the community,” the announcement reads.
Washington, meanwhile, has begun to slowly ease restrictions with the caveat that testing and contact tracing capabilities must continue to improve before the state can fully reopen.
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