When children of school age show signs of illness like a runny nose, headache, fever, or even diarrhea, a parent must now do more than call the school to report their absence. Instead, they must begin searching for a doctor or lab available to test their child in case they've caught COVID. It’s not always an easy quest.
Since the start of school, Sansum nearly doubled its number of COVID tests for children in the first weeks of September compared to all of last June, said Randi Rossi, who manages the Pediatric Branch. At Cottage Health’s Urgent Care clinics, testing of young patients more than doubled from July 17 to September 16. At Pacific Diagnostic Labs, a subsidiary of Cottage, among those ages 0-17, testing tripled — from 791 to 2,730 — with a positive result about 5 percent of the time.
Cottage releases appointment times online at 8 p.m. for the next day, which fill quickly in the morning. A search for COVID testing labs online can turn up other locations, urgent cares, and pharmacies that offer same-day testing. Costs range from $90-$275 depending on the test, but insurance can sometimes bring that down to zero or a copay. A full lab test can take up to 48 hours to give a result, and rapid tests can return results the same day, if not the same hour. But there’s a catch.