MOSES LAKE — The stop signs and barriers at Samaritan Hospital, the screening regimen in place before people can move beyond the lobby, are signs of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. But so is the presence of Jennifer Avery and Megan Peters, at what is, in normal times, the lobby’s information desk.

Normally, the information desk is run by volunteers who help visitors, patients and people who have business at the hospital. And normally Avery and Peters have jobs elsewhere. But these are not normal times.

Director of communications Gretchen Youngren said Samaritan officials set up a tent outside the building, but the weather was still too cold, and some of the equipment didn’t work. So the screening station was moved back inside the building.

Currently, Samaritan is closed to most visitors. The screening station is for employees, consultants, vendors, anyone coming and going. Everybody is checked when they enter, and employees get a second check when they leave for the day.

Normally, Avery and Peters can be found in the cardiac rehabilitation department. It focuses on patients with heart disease, working with them on exercise programs and educating them on ways to manage the disease. Avery is the lead exercise physiologist for the cardiac rehab program. Peters is an exercise specialist, who monitors patients during their workouts. Cardiac patients are in one of the high-risk groups for complications from COVID-19, so the program has been shut down temporarily.

But Samaritan needed medical professionals to act as screeners.

“We were all saying, ‘What can we do?’” Peters said, and for the cardiac rehab team, one of the answers was filling the need for screeners.

“It’s fun getting to see everybody we work with,” Avery said.

People entering the building get a temperature check, because fever is one of the symptoms of the disease. Other symptoms are a persistent cough and shortness of breath.

People who are showing symptoms are asked to visit Samaritan Clinic, 1550 S. Pioneer Way, where the respiratory virus evaluation center has been set up. It opened March 17, and as of Friday six people who had gone through the evaluation center had tested positive for COVID-19, Youngren said.

“It’s doing its job,” she added.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].