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State partners with Walgreens to expand COVID-19 testing

July 18, 2020

Delaware is expanding testing for COVID-19 through a partnership announced July 15 with Walgreens. Testing will be offered at one Walgreens pharmacy in each county, with plans to add more sites.

“One of the cornerstones of this update is to provide consistent, stable testing availability to residents regardless of symptoms or insurance,” said Delaware Division of Public Health Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “The basis for our plan is to show that testing options for Delawareans have expanded greatly from when this pandemic first began, and that Delawareans have easy access to COVID-19 testing of their choice, when and where they need it. Testing, and knowing your COVID status, is a key mitigation strategy in battling this pandemic.”

Starting Thursday, July 16, drive-thru COVID-19 testing will be available to anyone regardless of symptoms or insurance, officials said. Drive-thru testing will be available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week at the following Walgreens:

• 9202 Commercial Centre Drive, Bridgeville

• 1215 S. State St., Dover

• 700 S. Ridge Ave., Middletown.

No appointment is required; however, officials said, initial wait times may vary depending on volume of traffic at a site. Walk-up testing will also be available on site at the external drive-thru location; customers should not come into the pharmacy for COVID-19 testing., officials said.

Officials said patients will do their own tests, swabbing the inside of their nose with a nasal swab. Specimen samples will be processed through the DPH Laboratory, officials said.

DPH will work with Walgreens over the coming weeks to add more pharmacy locations for testing, officials said, and DPH is talking with other pharmacy chains to provide testing. DPH is also working with a company to automate registration and reporting of results from these tests.

Officials said Delaware’s updated COVID-19 testing plan aims to increase access, improve equity and cost, while focusing on the elderly, low-income and minority communities, and certain frontline essential workers.

More information about COVID-19 testing, including a map and calendar of all of the available testing sites throughout the state, can be found at de.gov/gettested.

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