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An apparent spike in the number of people seeking COVID tests on the North Shore resulted in three-hour waits and caused cars to snake around the block at North Vancouver’s ICBC testing centre on the past two Monday mornings.
Patrick Reakes of Bowen Island was one of those in the line-up on Monday.
Reakes said he’d been feeling unwell for a few days, and as there is no COVID testing on Bowen, arrived at the North Vancouver testing centre before 9 a.m. to find a line of cars stretching to the intersection of Pemberton Avenue and Welch Street.
Reakes said he counted 100 cars in the line-up and most of them seemed to have children in them.
On Tuesday, Dr. Bonnie Henry, the province's medical health officer, confirmed there has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of school-aged children being tested as other respiratory viruses also start to circulate.
Reakes said he waited three hours in the line-up before receiving a test. During that time, about six cars in front of him pulled out of the line-up and left, he added.
The exact same scenario played out at the ICBC COVID test centre a week earlier in North Vancouver.
Cheryl Atchison arrived at the testing centre at 9 a.m. Sept. 20.
Her teenage daughter hadn’t been feeling well that weekend and her doctor recommended she get tested.
When they arrived, however, the lineup of cars at the testing centre was already around the corner and on to a side street, said Atchison.
She added she checked online to see if other testing sites might be quicker but an accident on the Ironworkers ruled those out.
Atchison said it took almost two hours for her daughter to receive a test.
The nurse whom they spoke with told them while staffing was the same, there were just a high number of people coming in for testing that day, she said.
Fortunately, in her own case, the family got the news back in 30 hours that her daughter had tested negative.
Atchinson said she does wonder whether COVID-19 protocols in schools might be slipping if kids are coming down with respiratory illnesses.
“I was surprised that my kid was sick at all,” she said. “We didn’t have a cold or flu in our house for over a year.”
Vancouver Coastal Health had no immediate information about how many more people have visited the ICBC testing centre in the past two weeks than in the past.
“As one of the larger COVID-19 testing clinics in B.C., people may experience longer lines at the ICBC Claim Centre site as we deal with a greater volume of clients,” said Jeremy Deutsch, spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health. Deutsch added there have been no cutbacks in either the hours or staffing at the site, so wait times are reflections of demand.
Positivity rates for public COVID tests on the North Shore have recently ranged from two per cent in the upper part of West Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver to seven per cent on Bowen Island and in Lions Bay, according to B.C.’s Centre for Disease Control.
