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Somerville Hospital to start limited drive-up coronavirus testing on Wednesday

By adamg on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 8:28pm

Via Somerville City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen comes news that the Cambridge Health Alliance will start daily drive-up testing at Somerville Hospital on Wednesday, but only for alliance patients who have an appointment - and symptoms.

"Needless to say, we need more test kits ASAP," he adds.

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Covid-19


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Comments

By Ron Newman on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 9:25pm.

 

By adamg on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 9:45pm.

Per a more detailed overview from the city:

"CHA will be able to test authorized patients who arrive on foot," although subject to the same provisos as noted above.

By Living on Green Street on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 9:48pm.

Somerville has their act together and is leading the way (as usual for the State! Thank God we've got great city leaders like them!!

By Anon on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 9:58pm.

Or, I'm a patient at Harvard Vanguard or MGH or Partners, I can't get tested?

That's absurd.

By Pete X on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 9:20am.

Pretty good argument for single payer health care right there.

By adamg on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 10:09am.

One of the reasons this isn't a South Korea-style drive-up is because we just don't have enough test kits. Note that even for CHA patients, they still need to get approval from their doctor that they actually have Covid-19 symptoms.

By brianjdamico on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 11:26am.

You can't get tested there.

The overall situation is absurd. CHA making testing more accessible to a capacity that they can accommodate means that they can run tests that would have otherwise run at another lab. So maybe now one of the other labs can run your test.

If the DPH can run 400 tests, and CHA can even add 5, that's 5 more tests than were available before.

By anon on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 12:07pm.

Yeah, it's a problem.

But it's no different from a doctor who isn't accepting new patients, which occurs all the time.

By Lisfnord on Tue, 03/17/2020 - 5:35pm.

Can I get fries with that?