Drive-Through Coronavirus Testing In Arlington, Va. Offers Limited Help As Demand Grows

WAMU, 88.5, Amer. Univ. Radio, March 18, 2020. This story was updated at 4:20 p.m.

Arlington County and the Virginia Hospital Center launched a coronavirus sampling site Wednesday, but a short supply of test kits and limited lab processing ability are forcing them to be selective with who they see.

Their tight restrictions reveal a chaotic picture: Only some Virginia counties have launched testing programs, and the state is referring people to clinics that don’t have testing capabilities, while private hospitals that ramp up testing are quickly overloaded.

[Read the latest updates about coronavirus in our region here]

Melody Dickerson, the senior vice president and chief nursing officer at the Virginia Health Center, said her group started an off-site collection center to protect vulnerable patients in hospitals.

“Our emergency department is full of patients who are ill, who seek emergency medical treatment,” Dickerson said. “We want to make sure that people who believe they might have been exposed to COVID aren’t intermingling with those other patients.”

Dickerson said the VHC is providing staff, while Arlington County is providing a site on Quincy Street for sample collection from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Patients must drive in, and a medical worker shouts instructions with a megaphone through the car’s closed window. To get tested, a patient needs to have a doctor’s order for a test and make an appointment. Only Arlington residents, employees of the county government or public schools or VHS patients are eligible.

Dickerson estimated the site could process about six patients an hour over the course of a six-hour day. Results will be available in four or five days, she said. The restrictions are necessary to prevent “a logjam of results” so that the most vulnerable patients get their tests processed first.

Arlington County has 14 presumed cases of COVID-19 and is tied with Fairfax County for most cases in the state, according to the Virginia Department of Health...

Read More, https://wamu.org/story/20/03/18/drive-through-coronavirus-testing-in-arlington-offers-limited-help-as-demand-grows/



- A medical worker greets patients at a new drive-through sampling site in Arlington. The Virginia Hospital Center and Arlington County set up the site, but limitations are strict.




- Prince William County resident Luis Ramirez could not get sampled for COVID-19 at the Arlington site.