Davalee Meade, a paramedic with Woodburn Ambulance Service administers a COVID-19 test to Daniel Nakayama, 22, during a free drive-through testing clinic on Tuesday, August 25. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
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Daniel Nakayama sat in his car in the parking lot of the Woodburn Evangelical Church, waiting for a paramedic to wave him forward.
The 22-year-old Hubbard resident and his girlfriend Bianca Valenzuela, 21, pulled in at the Woodburn Ambulance’s back parking lot and rolled down the window so a paramedic could swab their noses.
Nakayama was among 100 Woodburn-area residents who signed up for a free drive-through coronavirus test on Tuesday, Aug. 25.
He said he wanted to get tested because his mother and younger sister contracted Covid in early August. Most Covid tests in Oregon are ordered by doctors in health clinics, but Nakayama said he couldn’t get a test because he didn’t have symptoms of the illness and at the time didn’t have health insurance.
“It’s harder to get in,” he said of local clinics.
The event was the first of four weekly drive-through testing clinics intended to give public health authorities a better idea of how prevalent the virus is in Marion County – and where it’s spreading.
Marion County was an early hotspot for the virus when the pandemic took hold in Oregon in early March. Public health agencies detected the first local case of the virus March 8 in a Woodburn resident, and said the early presence of the virus in the north county is one of the reasons Marion County has maintained a high rate of infection.
“We’ve had more time here before those policy decisions were put into place for the virus to spread,” said Katrina Rothenberger, public health division director for Marion County.
The county since March has reported over 3,600 cases of the virus, infecting about 1% of the county’s population. That’s a higher rate than any other urban Oregon county. Statewide, about 0.6% of Oregonians have been diagnosed with Covid since the pandemic began.
Still, Marion County’s testing rate has lagged behind other large Oregon counties. To date, about 42,000 county residents have received a COVID test, according to Oregon Health Authority data, 12% of the county’s population. (People tested for the virus multiple times are only counted once.)
Statewide, 12.6% of Oregonians have been tested, and Washington and Multnomah County’s rates are slightly higher.
Rothenberger said after reviewing the numbers for July and early August, the health department embarked on a campaign to raise the county’s testing rate to the state’s weekly average so they can better understand how prevalent the virus is and where it’s spreading. That would take testing about 3,150 Marion County residents weekly.
Rothenberger said she doesn’t expect to see a lower percentage of positive tests as a result of more testing. Health officials typically expect that because a bigger pool of people taking the tests usually means more people without the virus are included.
But in Marion County, and especially Woodburn, expanded testing hasn’t generally had that effect since testing became more widespread in the spring.
The number is especially significant now because Gov. Kate Brown has tied school reopening to the percentage of a county’s tests coming back positive. To hold in-person classes, most schools must be in a county where 5% or fewer of Covid tests are positive. Marion County’s average since March is closer to 8%, and it’s been trending up in recent weeks.
The extra testing, though, will give the county a better sense of where to attack the virus.
“It’s to really identify where the outbreaks are, where Covid is spreading and help public health identify additional tools and strategies to slow the spread of the pandemic,” she said.
The department started by reaching out to community groups in Woodburn, with a goal of adding about 110 tests weekly.
Shawn Baird, of Woodburn Ambulance Services, demonstrates a COVID-19 rapid test on Tuesday, August 25. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Woodburn Ambulance was eager to help. Owner Shawn Baird said testing only people who are clearly ill misses a large number of cases, particularly those infected but showing no symptoms.
“Getting good surveillance data amid the general population is a bit difficult,” he said.
The Woodburn area has one of the highest rates of Covid cases per person of any ZIP code in Oregon.
To date, 803 residents of the Woodburn ZIP code have been diagnosed with Covid – about 22% of all Marion County cases of the virus in an area that holds only 8% of the county’s population.
Community leaders say that rate reflects a community that’s disproportionately at risk for getting sick. Food processing plants have been the sites of many of Oregon’s largest workplace Covid outbreaks, and Woodburn is home to many of the county’s farm and agricultural workers.
READ: In Marion County, high concentrations of virus blamed on inequality of care
Rothenberger said families living in “crowded multigenerational housing” contributed to the spread of Covid in the county. About one-third of Marion County’s cases are traced to someone else in the same household. When large families share tight quarters – a factor many Latino community groups say is common in the households they serve – it’s easier for everyone to get sick.
The city is majority Latino, and advocates say a combination of language and cultural barriers, lack of health insurance and fears over immigration enforcement cause people to avoid health care.
“Most people that come to our events tell us they have barriers going to clinics,” said Marin Arreola, program director for the Interface Network. The network is a non-profit organization helping people consider health insurance options in Oregon, and provided interpreters in Spanish, Russian and Mixtec for this week’s testing event.
Other efforts to test more residents have revealed a higher prevalence of Covid than official numbers indicate. Interface interpreters staffed an Aug. 1 drive-through testing event in Woodburn run by Alluvium, a Salem-based health care nonprofit organization. Arreola said nearly everyone tested reported no symptoms of illness, but 13% were positive for the virus.
“They’re passing it around without even knowing it,” he said.
At the Woodburn Ambulance event, elderly couples in pick-up trucks and a family of five in an SUV were among those who came to get tested. People had to preregister for a spot, but the test was free, with results delivered over the phone in about three days.
Though testing began at 4 p.m., several cars were in line by 3:30. Baird said his paramedics and EMTs tested about 100 people that evening. About one-third requested interpretation services, mostly in Spanish.
Woodburn Ambulance will hold additional drive-through testing events Sept. 1, Sept. 8 and Sept. 15 at its Boone Road headquarters in Woodburn. More information about the event and how to register is available on the Woodburn Ambulance Facebook page.
Arreola said Interface wants to expand the service to drive-through testing events in Salem, Keizer and smaller cities in Polk County where testing rates have been low.
“The need is tremendous,” he said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
