Everett COVID-19 Testing Location Voluntarily Closing

We first told you last week about traffic problems at a privately operated COVID-19 testing site at 2606 Wetmore in downtown Everett, Washington. After our report came many others and the location switched to a walk-up only format while looking for a new location with help from the City of Everett.

After our story we began receiving tips from people concerned over the operations at the Center for COVID Control and contacted the City of Everett and other authorities to see if there were in fact issues with the site. We have not heard back from the officials we contacted but today the company put out a press release announcing they were halting all operations for a week. Here’s an excerpt from that release.

January 13, 2022 (Rolling Meadows, IL) – Certain Center for Covid Control (CCC) locations are experiencing high demand for testing due to the Omicron variant surge. This unusually high patient demand has stressed staffing resources, as has been widely reported, in a subset of our locations, affecting our usual customer service standards and diagnostic goals.

CCC acknowledges this operational strain on customer access and delivery of results/status in some locations and remains determined to provide accurate, trusted testing for our thousands of customers. To this end, and to ensure the highest customer service and diagnostic quality, the company is announcing today it will temporarily pause further collection of patient specimens effective Friday, January 14, 2022, with plans to reopen Saturday, January 22, 2022.

“Center for Covid Control is committed to serving our patients in the safest, most accurate and most compliant manner. Regrettably, due to our rapid growth and the unprecedented recent demand for testing, we haven’t been able to meet all our commitments,” said CCC founder and CEO Aleya Siyaj. “We’ve made this difficult decision to temporarily pause all operations, until we are confident that all collection sites are meeting our high standards for quality.”

CCC will use this operational pause for additional staff training in sample collection and handling, a refocus on customer service and communication practices and ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines. Siyaj continued, “CCC was founded to meet a critical market need to establish testing centers where COVID tests could be provided to patients rapidly and safely to minimize delay, and let people get on with their daily activities.”

We’ll continue to follow-up with the officials we contacted to see if they have any particular concerns about the Center for Covid Control location in Everett, Washington.