White House: More drive-through coronavirus test sites to open this week

The sites each will be able to screen 2,000 to 4,000 people per day.

• By Bobby Allyn and Mara Liasson/NPR

(Washington) — States hit hardest by the spread of coronavirus will see drive-through and walk-through testing sites set up this week, the White House said on Sunday, a shift that will provide more information about how widely the virus has spread across the country.

The sites each will be able to screen 2,000 to 4,000 people per day, with priority given to health care workers, first responders and people age 65 and older with respiratory symptoms and fevers above 99.6 degrees.

The Trump administration has been criticized for the lack of testing, which public health experts have said has masked the prevalence of the virus. Early on, there was a problem in test kits distributed to labs by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which slowed efforts to make testing more widely available.

President Trump declared the virus a national emergency on Friday, a move that freed up billions in funding and also activates the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help set up testing sites and field hospitals.

“We are going from somewhat manual, relatively slow phases, to a testing regimen that we can test many tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals per week, and maybe even more,” said Adm. Brett Giroir, who is leading the Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts in coordinating coronavirus testing.