UCHealth sees COVID positivity rate more than quadruple at Colorado testing sites in just two weeks
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- UCHealth says COVID-19 positivity rates have skyrocketed in the past two weeks at their testing clinics across the state of Colorado.
According to COVID-19 testing data from UCHealth, the single-day positivity rate for COVID-19 tests in all of UCHealth has been between 27% and 28% over the past three days. On Dec. 15, the daily positivity rate was just at 6.7%.
On top of this, UCHeath officials say the demand for COVID tests is growing. A couple of weeks ago, UCHealth was collecting on average about 1,000 to 1,200 COVID tests a day. On Tuesday, UCHealth collected more than 3,000 individual COVID tests across the state.
“Last time we saw positivity get this high was very early on. When we were only testing folks who were very suspicious for COVID, and the testing was very limited,” said Rob Welch, UCHealth's system lead for Laboratory Service.
UCHealth cannot definitively say the Omicron COVID-19 variant is the cause for the rise at this time - only testing from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment can confirm that. However, Welch believes Omicron is driving the numbers.
“We were able to monitor and see things that are highly suspicious to lead us to believe that it is Omicron," said Welch. "We are seeing (Omicron) in about 90% of our positive cases.”
Usually, positivity rates for COVID-19 rise first and an increase in hospitalizations follow, but Welch is hopeful that hospitals will be okay.
“Some of the reports we are getting out of other countries show that the hospitalizations haven’t been as bad with Omicron," said Welch. "So we are still hopeful we are not going to see that huge spike in hospitalizations, but that remains a possibility.”
If you have a doctor's order, you do not require an appointment for a COVID-19 test at UCHealth facilities. However, if you do not have an order you must set an appointment through UCHealth’s free patient portal - My Health Connection. More information can be found here.
