INGHAM COUNTY - The Ingham Community Health Centers, in partnership with the Ingham County Health Department, have drive through testing for COVID-19 available to our community.

The drive through testing is a way to offer medical staff to gather samples safely from patients for diagnostic testing from people who are at risk of COVID-19. The process for this will prevent sick individuals in need of testing from entering labs, hospitals, and heath care areas where the person could be a risk to infect others with the virus. There is no vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 and tests are in limited supply. ICHC is able to provide over the phone patient registration and assessment by a provider.

HOMTV spoke with Ingham County Health Officer, Linda Vail, about the drive through testing. She told us what citizens need to know about drive through testing and says, “We have to have people call ahead. Sparrow Drive through won’t even test you unless you drive through with an order. If you don’t have a health care provider, they can reach out to an urgent care, that is one resource. Redicare in Okemos is also doing drive through testing and has been doing a lot of work related to this. The ER is not the place for this right now. If you’re at home and doing well, and your just calling to get to reassurance or direction from a health care provider."

Vail also added the other thing that happens and this is important for people to know, "Every time we test someone our staff and staff anywhere put on personal protective equipment. We know those things will get in short supply if our hospitals get overwhelmed. If we use our PPE (personal protective equipment) right now for a whole bunch of test that didn’t need to happen, then what we will do is burn through a lot of protective equipment. When we get more serious cases in hospitals and start to run short of our health care workers being able to have them, then there more at risk of getting exposed and sick, then will have the possibility of health care workers getting sick and not having enough of them at work to do all the work that needs to be done.”

The full interview can be found on HOMTV’s Youtube channel below.