More than 3,500 COVID tests administered in first week back at Civic Center site

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - It’s now been five days since COVID-19 testing picked back up at the Savannah Civic Center.

The site reached its limit on Monday and had to close early. The Coastal Health District says activity at the site has slowed down since.

For the first three days, so Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Dr. Chris Rustin, with the Chatham County Health Department says they tested more than 3,500 people at the Civic Center. Compare that to last week where they say they tested about 3,700 people in seven days.

Rustin says Monday was the busiest day for the Civic Center this week and they made the decision to close early. He says this is because their testing vendor had a lot of their staff call out sick because of COVID, so they couldn’t move people through the line as fast.

Since then, he says, they have come up with a solution and are able to administer tests much faster.

“Since then, we’ve actually sent some of our staff at the health department to help them out and we’ve been able to add another line to the site and move those cars through quicker,” Dr. Rustin said.

As a reminder, the Coastal Health District does have two sites in Chatham County. Dr. Rustin says between the site at the Civic Center and the one on Georgia Tech’s Savannah campus, they’re averaging more than 1,000 tests a day.

Dr. Rustin says with it being hard to get a hold of rapid tests right now, it’s a good idea to come to one of these sites.

Even though it’s not a rapid result, people can still have it in about 24 hours.

The site at the Civic Center is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and the first and third Saturday of the month from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

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