CARLISLE – Residents of Cumberland County will soon have a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site to utilize.
Beginning Thursday, Jan. 28, a drive-thru testing clinic will open at the Army Heritage Education Center, 950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle.
The pop-up center is one of several across the state that will open this week. Other sites are in Armstrong, Jefferson, Monroe and Wayne counties.
Testing will be available daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Monday, Feb. 1.
Up to 450 patients can be tested per day. Mid-nasal passage swab PCR tests will be performed. Testing is on a first-come, first-serve basis and is completely free to all patients.
Testing is also open to individuals who are not county residents.
Patients must be ages 3 and older and are not required to show symptoms of COVID-19 in order to be tested.
No appointment is necessary. Patients are encouraged to bring a photo-ID or insurance card. Registration will also be completed on-site. The turnaround time for testing results is two to seven days after testing.
Individuals who are tested should self-quarantine while they await test results. Individuals who live with other people should self-quarantine in a private room and use a private bathroom if possible.
Others living in the home with the individual awaiting test results should also stay at home. Individuals who test positive will receive a phone call from AMI while individuals who test negative will receive a secured-PDF emailed to them from AMI.
The counties with testing sites will continue to change weekly over the next five weeks so that 61 counties will eventually be covered by dedicated pop-up testing sites over a 12-week period.
Over the past several weeks, there has been a rapid increase of positive case counts reaching record-high levels, which gives the department significant cause for concern. Every county now has a positivity-rate greater than five percent, which is alarming. In addition, nine counties have percent positivity above 15 percent, one county has percent positivity above 20 percent, and one county has percent positivity above 40 percent.
From March through Jan. 25, the department has received 8,952,343 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results, which roughly equates to 70 percent of the population.
From May through January 25, the department has received 1,110,554 antigen test results. The total number of tests combined equates to 10,062,897, roughly 78.6 percent of the total Pennsylvania population.
