The Arkansas Department of Health will be hosting a drive-through COVID-19 testing event next month in El Dorado.
Testing will be held on Saturday, June 6, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Union County Fairgrounds.
There are no out-of-pocket costs and insurance is not required.
“Anyone who wants to be tested can be tested,” said Union County Health Unit Administrator Tammy McCall. “You don’t have to be a contact or have any symptoms. There’s no screening or anything like that. It’s not a screening event, it is a testing event. Anyone who wants to be tested can be tested.”
People wishing to be tested must present identification for information purposes.
“When you come through the front gate of the fairgrounds, we’ll have people there that will collect information and fill out a short requisition form,” McCall said. “There will be people there that will collect basic demographic information, we just ask that everyone remain in their vehicles, have your windows up and we will have someone that will collect that basic demographic information. We want to make sure that we have the correct spelling of their name, a good phone number and a good address. We don’t want a P.O. box. We would like a physical address and that is strictly for reporting purposes, so that if you do test positive, and we need to contact you, we have a good phone number and we have a good physical address.”
The test itself will be done using a nasal swab.
“You’ll roll your window down a little bit, the person will hand you the swab and explain to you how to do it, you’ll roll your window back up,” McCall said. “You’ll take the soft end of swab and you’ll place it about midways in one nostril and rotate it twice, hold it inside for 15 seconds, then you’ll remove the swab and repeat the process in the other nostril. Then you’ll open the specimen tube and you’ll place the soft end of the swab in the tube. Then you’ll break off the top of the swab stick and just replace the tube cap. Once you hand that out to the nurse out the window, that completes your process.”
Danyelle McNeill, a spokesperson for the ADH, told the News-Times earlier this month that the types of tests offered by the ADH through the Health Unit, is less invasive than those that require specimens from the posterior nasopharynx.
Those that come to be tested are advised to wear masks and heed social distancing protocols.
“We do ask that you are social distancing and staying at least six feet apart,” McCall said. “We do ask that you wear your mask when you come.”
McCall hopes to have a large turnout.
“I would hope so,” McCall said. “We are testing here at the local health unit. We ask that you call for an appointment. At the local health unit, we can test people who have been a contact to a positive COVID-19, and we can also test you here at the local health unit if you have symptoms. At the fairgrounds, anyone can be tested, so we have been testing here at the local health unit. I would hope that maybe we could do at least 500 tests. I would hope we could test that at least that many, I would love to test more.”