Pop-up COVID testing site coming to WCH Monday

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An Ohio Department of Health pop-up COVID-19 testing site will be available at no cost on Monday in Washington Court House as local virus cases continues to rise.

The site will be located at the Fayette County Fairgrounds, 213 Fairview Ave. Testing will be conducted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. by drive-through.

Those who wish to take part, according to Fayette County Public Health (FCPH) Deputy Health Commissioner Leigh Cannon, should remain in their vehicles and enter the fairgrounds from the Leesburg Avenue entrance.

The test will be at no-cost and anyone is welcome to take a test. No appointments or referrals are needed as those taking part simply arrive the day of. Quantities may be limited.

This site is one of the pop-up testing sites throughout Ohio that are open to anyone. The other regional locations will be announced soon. More information is available at www.coronavirus.ohio.gov.

In a video shared on Friday to the FCPH Facebook page, Cannon explained to the community, “We need your help. We need you to one — answer your phone if our office calls you, two — we need you to be honest with us, and three — we need you to be kind. We are all working very long hours. We are all over COVID as well. We know that you are. We all have COVID fatigue, and we are just trying our best to keep working through as a team, and we need you to be part of that team.”

Cannon also asked the community to try to keep social circles small for a little while with the high spread of the virus that is currently happening within the county.

“We go back 48 hours for any onset of symptoms and trace back who you’ve been in contact with in that previous 48 hours,” she explained. “So, if you’re not with a lot of other people beside your household members or maybe some of your coworkers, then that number is a lot more manageable for us to contact trace. One case could possibly have anywhere from 10-to-30 close contacts that our office then has to monitor, and call, and quarantine.”

Fayette County remains on a level two (red) emergency alert and is still ranked second in the state for highest occurrence rate over the past couple of weeks.

According to information released by FCPH, as of Friday, 20 new cases had been reported over a two-day period while 18 had recovered, which brings the total active cases to 115.

Overall, the county has had a total of 373 confirmed cases and 36 probable cases for a total of 409. Of those 409 cases, 286 have recovered and eight are deceased. There have been 50 cases hospitalized overall with 14 currently remaining in the hospital. There are 336 individuals currently being monitored.

“I’m begging you to work with us on this. We are all in this together, we are rural strong, and we alone cannot do this — we need your help. Thank you,” said Cannon.

Reach journalist Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355 or on Twitter @JennMWoods.

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By Jennifer Woods

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