PORT ANGELES – At Wednesday morning’s coronavirus briefing, County Health Officer Dr. Unthank talked about the number of people she’s spoken to that believe they’ve already had a mild case of the virus but were never tested.
“I think that that may cause a lot of people to think that they’re immune to covid-19, and the fact is that the vast majority of us are not. We think probably less than 1% of Clallam County has gotten covid-19 so far. We have not seen since yet. We’ve done a really good job of keeping it down, but pretty much all of us are at risk of getting covid-19 going forward.”
Dr. Unthank also talked a bit about antibody tests which, ideally, would reveal whether or not you’ve been exposed to the virus.
“If you test positive on the antibody test, it doesn’t mean you currently have covid-19. It means you may have had covid-19 in the past or you may have had one of the other coronaviruses which causes the common cold. If people do want to get those tests, at this point, I don’t really recommend it. But if you do get one of those tests, the most important thing to know is, no matter what your result is, it doesn’t mean you’re immune to covid-19. So you do still have to practice that same physical distancing and all those other things we’ve been talking about.”
The new facility that opened last week near the airport has a new name. It’s now the Clallam County Social Distancing Shelter. Unthank said there has been confusion in the community about the purpose and policies of the shelter, and wanted to clear that up.
“There was some not very good messaging coming out of people who are under my management. So I just want to be super clear that we are changing that. This is a voluntary place that anyone can go who needs a place to shelter. Whether you’re sick, or you’re not, you can come, you can go. Certainly if you’re sick with covid-19, we’re going to strongly recommend that you stay. But we actually are not even going to keep folks there who have that. So it’s just a place for people to come indoors and be safe.”