Free COVID-19 testing available with the Coastal Health District

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The ability to test for COVID-19 has drastically increased in the state of Georgia over the last few weeks.

The Coastal Health District has announced a way for anyone with symptoms to be tested for free. The district says it takes five minutes to swab your nose and results will come in the next few days.

The health district states anyone with symptoms qualifies for a test, and those listed in critical workforce could qualify for a test to make sure they are not asymptomatic.

“We’re actually trying to get more people in to get tested now, because again this is going to give us some good data, it’s going to help us mitigate community strategies if we need to so we’re really encouraging people if they have symptoms or if they are in that priority group to call the call center and we’ll make an appointment for them to come in to be tested,” Chatham County Nurse Manager Tammi Brown said.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently expanded the list of common COVID-19 symptoms. Now in addition to fever, cough, and shortness of breath, other common symptoms include chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell.

“I think we’re just learning more about what it does, and different people are experiencing different things so it, it really depends so that’s why we’ve opened up this testing,” Brown said.

If you have any of these symptoms, call the Coastal Health District’s COVID-19 Testing Call Center at 1-912-230-9744 to schedule a free appointment for testing. The center takes calls Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. - 7 p.m., and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.

You must have an appointment for testing at one of the public health drive-through testing sites. The Coastal Health District currently has two drive-thru test sites; one in Glynn County and one in Chatham County.

As of April 25, the Coastal Health District had collected nearly 1,100 specimens for testing. The district says its swabbed those as young as eight months and have even seen some people test positive multiple times.

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