Health Department Opens a Second Community Testing Site to Expand Weekend Hours
The Hamilton County Health Department is opening a new COVID-19 community testing site at the Riverfront Parkway Emissions Testing Center, 1620 Riverfront Parkway, Chattanooga TN, 37402. The new site is being operated in partnership with the Chattanooga Police Department, Opus Inspection Inc., Tennessee National Guard, and Tennessee Department of Health.
“Thanks to this new partnership with the Tennessee National Guard, we are expanding the capacity to do more community testing,” says Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes, “The goal has been and continues to be the identification of positive cases so that we can rigorously investigate them and their contacts to contain the spread of the virus.”
The Riverfront site will complement the existing Bonnyshire community testing site which has been in operation for the past two weeks. The new site will offer service on the weekends only, while the Bonnyshire site will continue to operate during the week. No physician referral or symptoms are necessary to make an appointment at either site.
Anyone wanting a COVID-19 test should call the Health Department scheduling number 209-8393 to make an appointment.
The new site is predicted to handle hundreds of individuals per day on the weekends it is open. For now, the Riverfront site will be in operation for the next two weekends (April 25-26 and May 2-3). The decision to continue on subsequent weekends will be made at that time based on available resources.
Like the Bonnyshire samples, all samples collected at the Riverfront site will be processed at the Hamilton County Laboratory at Baylor School.
Call 423-209-8393 for an appointment.
For more information about COVID-19, please call the Health Department COVID-19 Hotline at 423-209-8383, or visit the Health Department COVID-19 website.