Effective this week:
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana is opening up COVID-19 testing to more Hoosiers, with expanded criteria and new testing services at 20 sites around the state.
The Indiana State Department of Health has tested more than 87,000 people at drive-thru clinics and with strike teams, Dr. Lindsay Weaver, chief medical officer of ISDH, said in a Tuesday press briefing with Gov. Eric Holcomb. The eligible groups for that testing up until Tuesday had been symptomatic essential workers and their households, as well as symptomatic people with underlying conditions that make them high risk.
As of Tuesday, that testing expands to include any Hoosier with virus symptoms, people in close contact with those who have tested positive and residents of congregant communities.
Each Indiana National Guard armory site will be open at least eights hours per day, Monday through Friday.
People who want to be tested at these sites are encouraged to sign up online, but a call-in line will also be available, Weaver said. Weaver did not provide a web address or a phone number during the press conference.
To sign up online, users will self-report symptoms in the Optum online screening tool and register to be assigned an appointment date and time. That registration portal will open 48 before a testing site opens, Weaver said.
No one will be charged for testing, and you do not have to have insurance to be tested. People who have private insurance are asked to bring their insurance information with them to the testing, she said.
Test results should be available within 48 hours and will be provided to both the person tested and ISDH. People who test negative will receive a text or email. People who test positive will receive a phone call, she said.
When all 50 sites around the state have opened, up to 30,000 people will be able to be tested weekly, in addition to ongoing ISDH testing.
Weaver said OptumServe will provide all the supplies, including personal protective equipment and workers and will collect the swab specimens and manage the testing and reporting of results. The cost to the state at the time of the briefing was $17.9 million. Weaver said the hope was that a good portion of that cost would be covered by federal grants. It was not clear what span of time that testing cost covered.
The locations of the additional 30 sites to be added will be based on hot spots and needs, and the testing will continue on a month-to-month basis, Weaver said.
According to the governor’s office, about 4,400 more Hoosiers will be tested every day in the initial phase of Optum testing. And when all 50 sites are open, as many as 6,600 more Hoosiers can be tested per day.
Indiana opens up COVID-19 testing to all Hoosiers with symptoms