New Castle County adds evening COVID test site to help meet surge
DELAWARE CITY, Del. - A new COVID testing site with flexible hours has opened in Delaware. The site is unique because of its evening hours, from 5:30 through 11:30 p.m.
Cars were lined up and moving quickly Tuesday night, at the Delaware City DMV, the new test site location.
Katie Kirkley’s child tested positive, so she’s getting her family tested.
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"We both worked, basically, through the whole pandemic," Kirkley stated."With us, we’ve had a couple people out at work and our kids go back and forth with school. It is kinda huge to finally be able to find a place to get tested. Most people are okay with scheduling you two to three weeks out and that doesn’t give us much of a relief."
The new location is an appointment only site and they can do up to 1,000 tests a day. Tuesday night, they estimated about 600 tests were done.
The Delaware Division of Public Health or DPH and the Delaware Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) partnered with FEMA to open up the free drive-thru testing site.
Testing demand has nearly tripled since the week before Thanksgiving, with the highest appeal for testing located in New Castle County.
"This is a boost," said Jeff Sands, with DEMA. "We’ve been averaging over 62,000 tests just last week in the state of Delaware that have been administered. That’s a great step, and they continue to rise every week. One of these things is we’re hoping this is going to give us some additional support."
The site comes as a new nationwide initiative to offer four at-home tests to each household to be mailed at the end of the month through the United States Postal Service.
"I received a text today about ordering through the USPS," said Carlton Lampkins.
But, for anyone needing an accurate test immediately, sites such as the Delaware City test site is the best solution.
"Rapid tests are great but they are a tool in the tool box," Sands remarked. "The PCR is really that gold standard where you will know very certainly if you are positive or not. It’s a tool that you use. We recommend that you use it in consultation with your doctor."
They are open every day of the week except Wednesday, when the DMV has regular business hours.
Anyone needing to make an appointment, can do so through the website, listed here. Hours are as shown.
•Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 5:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m.
•Saturdays: 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
•Sundays: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
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