Montgomery County opened a coronavirus testing site in Wheaton on Wednesday and has plans to open an additional site in Germantown on Monday.
The county posted on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon that there were already “several dozen” appointments scheduled at the Wheaton Library and Community Recreation Center on opening day. Testing will be conducted on Wednesdays.
The Germantown site will be at the Upcounty Regional Services Center.
“Having increased access to testing will be very meaningful to help guide the decisions we make in terms of how we open up ‘society,’ so to speak,” Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles said during a media briefing on Wednesday.
The county is already partnering with the state’s health department to conduct testing on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Vehicle Emissions Inspection Program site in White Oak.
The testing for all three sites is administered by appointment only.
Also, MedStar Health has been doing drive-thru testing in Bethesda since March 27. Its testing is at the Pauline Betz Addie Tennis Center at 7801 Democracy Blvd..
Marianne Worley, a spokeswoman for MedStar, said the site had tested 580 patients since it opened, as of Wednesday afternoon. She said the hospital and Medstar’s urgent care centers are also doing testing.
The drive-thru testing site is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. The patients who visit the site must be prescreened through MedStar’s eVisit platform.
According to the county’s Health and Human Services department, people will only qualify for a test at the Wheaton and Germantown testing sites if a licensed health care provider determined they meet testing criteria . Providers can complete an online order for testing through Maryland’s Chesapeake Regional Information System.
Patients will need to make an appointment online once the order is placed. ID numbers will be provided after the appointments are confirmed. The appointment ID numbers and photo IDs will need to be taken to the testing sites.
Gayles said the county is also working on setting up a testing hotline.
People without a medical care provider or with insurance status problems, or those with concerns of having a significant exam fee, can connect with a provider through the hotline. The provider would screen and triage patients and determine whether they need a test.
“We will have a script in terms of a screening protocol to assess an individual’s symptoms and history,” Gayles said.
If patients have insurance, providers on the hotline might provide a list of testing sites other than the county’s, he said.
Gov. Larry Hogan announced Monday that the state paid $9 million for 500,000 test kits from South Korea. The tests are from LabGenomics and arrived in a plane on Saturday at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Gayles said Wednesday that he didn’t know when or whether the county would receive some of the test kits from South Korea and if those would lead to more test sites in the county.
“We were looking to stand up testing sites weeks ago and were hamstrung by our ability to have increased testing capacity and access to testing kits,” he said. “We are awaiting more details from the state in terms of how these test kits will be used [and] how they will be distributed.”
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, who also attended the virtual briefing, said he hasn’t received any information on the tests either.
“They have not shared any of those details of how many kits and where we would take them to get them evaluated,” he said. “So there’s still some work to be done with this plan.”
There has also been no information on what is specifically provided in the test kits, Gayles said.
The priority for testing will be for those who are symptomatic, followed by those who have had contact with someone who had symptoms, he said.
“I think increasing the test capacity … would allow for the opportunity to do immediate testing or very short-term testing for individuals who have come into contact with known cases,” Gayles said. “Because that again will allow us to more readily identify folks at an early stage, get them isolated very quickly, and again, increase that scope of network of contacts to get those folks quarantined.”
The county will make sure there is enough testing available for nursing homes, senior living facilities and other high-risk populations, he said.
Other sites that have done testing in the area include MedOne Urgent Care in Bethesda; Kelly Goodman, NP & Associates, which has done drive-thru testing; and a drive-thru site at Glen Echo Center.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on testing prioritizes hospitalized patients and symptomatic health care workers first. Individuals without symptoms are not a priority, according to the CDC.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
