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State-run drive-thru coronavirus testing opens in Niagara County

The drive-thru site will regularly operate from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., seven days a week. The tests are by appointment only.

SANBORN, N.Y. — A rapidly assembled COVID-19 testing site at Niagara County Community College opened Wednesday morning.

The state government-run installation is set up in parking lots near the Saunders Settlement Road entrance to the college. At about 11 a.m., the first vehicles passed through the gauntlet of orange cones towards a large white tent where the testing was done.

In the last two weeks, coronavirus testing in the region has rapidly ratcheted-up. Better than 14,000 tests have been done in Erie County alone.

The drive-thru site will regularly operate from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., seven days a week. The tests are by appointment only. People interested in obtaining a test need to call the state government’s COVID-19 hotline at 888-364-3065.

A screener will ask questions about symptoms and recent contact with COVID-19 positive people. If the screener determines there is a need for a test, a testing appointment location, date and time will be set.

Credit: WGRZ

At the testing site, if there are others in the vehicle without appointments, tests will be offered to them as well. If someone opts-in, paperwork will need to be filled out.

Everyone tested receives a card reminding them that they are to return directly home and stay quarantined until they receive test results. Test samples will be processed by BioReference laboratories and results are expected in five to seven days.

Credit: WGRZ
Wednesday afternoon, workers were assembling a drive-thru coronavirus testing site near the Key Bank Center. The location is set to open Thursday morning.

While test subjects motored through the NCCC site, another testing location was under construction in Buffalo. Just two block east of the KeyBank Center on Perry Street, truckloads of gear and a small army of workers were assembling tents Wednesday afternoon.

At full capacity, both drive-thru testing sites are said to be able to do 500 tests per day.

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