Politics

States Asked To Take Control Over Drive-Thru COVID-19 Testing Sites

Up until this point, the federal government has been supplying the testing materials and protective equipment for staff at these testing sites.

States Asked To Take Control Over Drive-Thru COVID-19 Testing Sites
Carlos Osorio / AP
Article by Katherine Biek
SMS
April 10, 2020

The Department of Health and Human Services now says the federal government will continue to support drive-thru coronavirus testing sites. 

According to NPR, there are 41 of these sites set up across the country as part of the Community-Based Testing Sites program. 

Up until this point, the federal government has been supplying the testing materials and protective equipment for staff, ordering the lab tests and even notifying the patients about their results. 

But on Thursday the HHS and FEMA gave state governors a choice: states could choose to take control of these drive-thru testing sites or they could ask the federal government to continue to operate them. 

The agencies said states could still request supplies through FEMA channels and receive technical assistance from the federal government if they went with the first option. 

Of the more than 2 million Americans who have been tested for the coronavirus, more than 77,000 of them had their tests done at one of the drive-thru testing sites. But President Trump said Thursday that widespread testing will most likely not happen anytime soon.

"Do we need it? No. Is it a nice thing to do? Yes. We're talking about 325 million people, and that's not going to happen, as you can imagine," the president said. 

Contains footage from CNN.