PORT ANGELES – On Monday, White House staff told America’s Governors they were strongly recommending that residents and staff in all the nation’s long-term care facilities be tested for coronavirus in the next two weeks.

Governor Inslee has directed the state Department of Health to prepare to do so and they are now working on a plan, which is expected to be announced in the coming days.

At Friday morning’s briefing, County Health Officer Dr. Unthank said, given the current available resources, the directive is not feasible here.

“That would be, at this point, an impossible task. The number of swabs needed to do that would be a large majority of our current swabs in Clallam County. The other thing to know is that in most of those long-term care facilities, there’s no one there to do the testing. So we would need a large workforce to go to all those long-term care facilities to test all of those people. If the governor’s office sends up a large number of testing kits and also the people to do the swabs, we’re happy to do it. But until that time, it’s just not possible.”

Unthank says, for now, health officials will continue to do what has worked so far. That is, testing everyone who is sick, especially in long-term care facilities, practicing excellent infection controls, keeping people who are sick out of those care facilities, and then contact tracing any cases.