By: Jack Bilyeu
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.- Thursday is the last day to get screened for COVID-19 for free without an appointment. The drive-through testing event in the Baum-Walker Stadium parking lot will be open from 8:30 until 12:30 tomorrow. After that, testing will be available from the Pat Walker Health Center, but by appointment only.
Jaycie Dodd decided to get tested when her on-campus housing unit had an outbreak.
“I thought it’d be best to just be proactive and get tested. So when I learned about the on-campus mass testing, I figured that’d be the easiest for me,” Dodd said.
Dodd went on Monday- the first day of the event. It took more than two hours to get to the front of the line. She said cars were backed up onto Razorback Road. She got her results the next day- negative.
Zac Brown, a spokesperson for Pat Walker Health Center, said he is hopeful there will be more testing events like this one in the future. There were no prerequisites to be screened at the ADH event, but that is not the case at the clinic. While drive- through testing is available there as well, there are a few requirements.
“We’re only testing those who are symptomatic or have been identified as having direct contact through contact tracing and other means,” Brown said. This, he said, is to conserve testing supplies. The Department of Health, on the other hand, has a much larger capacity.
At testing events like the one in Fayetteville, the Arkansas Department of Health has the capacity to test 1,000 people per day. The goal at this event was to test 500 per day. That goal was not met on Tuesday but was exceeded on Wednesday. In spite of the rocky start, though, Brown said the event has proven successful so far.
“It proves to be a very efficient way to test a large population,” said Brown. Especially when a community is seeing a rise in cases.