The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department announced that Ohio National Guard, Mercy Health, and ProMedica are collaborating with the health department to staff a mass coronavirus testing site in Maumee.
The free coronavirus testing will be available from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, and then daily after that starting on Sunday at the Lucas County Recreation Center, officials said at a news conference Thursday at the site.
The testing facility is the direct result of collaboration between community partners, and that collaboration is necessary against a formidable foe, ProMedica Chief Operating Officer Arturo Polizzi said.
“The omicron spread is real, and it’s happening very rapidly,” Mr. Polizzi said. “Our emergency departments across the region are inundated, and we need to decompress them with simple testing.”
Mr. Polizzi was joined by Toledo-Lucas County Health Commissioner Eric Zgodzinski and Mercy Health Toledo President Bob Baxter at Recreation Hall 2 at the site at 2901 Key St.
The testing site opens for business on Friday. Set up with help from the Ohio National Guard, it will offer free testing by appointment only, for which spots can be reserved at lucascountyhealth.com
E-mail will be required to fill out the registration form for the PCR test, and it will take about three days to receive results, officials said.
From Dec. 27 to Jan. 4, Lucas County recorded 4,900 confirmed cases of coronavirus and cases per 100,000 individuals increased to 1,019. Both of these figures were described by Mr. Zgodzinski as unprecedented and as high as the county has seen at any point in the nearly two years since the pandemic took hold.
Across the state, Ohio reported more than 19,400 new cases on Thursday.
Officials hope that the new testing center in Maumee will go a long way in alleviating any burden many facilities may be experiencing.
“I think a testing site like this is important because the more information people have about their status, the better decisions they can make,” Mr. Baxter said. “Testing is at a premium in the community so having a location like this with the resources and throughput that it offers, allows people to get the information they need.”
Mr. Baxter specified the increase in people coming into hospitals for testing and how that ties up space that might otherwise be used to help patients going to hospitals for other reasons.
“If we can [decrease] that volume and bring it to a location like this, then we can move people through our emergency departments and hospitals more efficiently and effectively,” he said at the rec center.
The recreation center has been a hub for coronavirus relief at various points throughout the last two years, and the familiarity and spaciousness of the site are what drew officials to it again.
“It goes back to disaster management,” Mr. Zgodzinski said. “You want to pick a place where people know, where it’s easy to get in and out of. Let’s face it, the rec center has been a central hub for vaccination and testing in the past, so people know this place. Plus, it’s a big facility, and we could set it up immediately.”
Mr. Zgodzinski and Mr. Baxter returned to the idea of collaboration. They gave credit and thanks to the partnership of the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, Mercy Health, ProMedica, and the Ohio National Guard, which helped get the facility reading for testing in just two days.
“From the earliest days of this pandemic one can look back to the testing that was set up at the Toledo Botanical Garden, to vaccination sites all through the pandemic, through where we are today, we would not be at this spot without great partners to work with,” Mr. Baxter said at the news conference.
“As a community we have all sacrificed a lot, and there are more sacrifices to come, but I am very hopeful for the dawn that seems to be in front of us,” Mr. Baxter said. “There’s a lot more work to be done, but I think access to testing is one of those very important elements to ensure that we provide what the community wants and the community needs.”
Mr. Polizzi of ProMedica said, “It sounds like the word of the day is collaboration.”
To view the complete schedule of available testing dates, times, registration, and to reserve a testing time, a web link is available at https://bit.ly/3zGuei8
Masks are required at the site. Those with positive test results are being advised to follow up with their health care provider and follow the direction of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is anticipated that the rec center testing site will be in place for 30 days, but it will be evaluated weekly.
First Published January 6, 2022, 3:40 p.m.
