On Saturday, July 25, drive-thru testing services for COVID-19 will be provided in partnership with the Town of Fountain Hills and Sonora Quest Laboratories. The testing will occur from 6 a.m. – 11 a.m. in the parking area of the Fountain Hills Community Center. Residents interested in being tested for COVID-19 are encouraged to access the Community Center parking lot entrance from westbound El Lago.
Sonora Quest Laboratories is prepared to test as many as 1,000 people and will be on a first come first served basis. The event will end at 11 a.m. or until all of the test kits have been administered. While the event is intended primarily for Fountain Hills residents, it is open to the community at large. People should bring an ID such as a driver’s license and an insurance card to the event. People are encouraged to seek testing if they believe they have been exposed to the virus or are experiencing flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath or loss of smell and/or taste. It is highly recommended to wear a face covering to the testing site.
“Fountain Hills is pleased to collaborate with Sonoran Quest Laboratories in offering a convenient test site for our residents,” said Mayor Ginny Dickey. “We’ve heard from citizens about the difficulty in finding nearby COVID-19 test sites. In addition to the Town hosting a convenient test site, Sonora Quest has given assurances the test results will also be considerably faster than usual,” said Mayor Dickey.
Sonora Quest is the leader in infectious disease testing services in Arizona. On March 20, 2020, the company introduced an RT-PCR test allowing for the detection of nucleic acid in respiratory specimens of patients meeting CDC’s clinical criteria for COVID-19 testing. RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 are generally used to aid diagnosis during active disease. Sonora Quest has performed and reported results of more than 400,000 diagnostic COVID-19 tests.
Earlier in the month, Arizona Department of Health Services ADHS announced it has contracted with Sonora Quest Laboratories to expand processing capabilities of COVID-19 diagnostic tests. Under this partnership, Sonora Quest expects to increase processing capacity to 35,000 diagnostic tests per day by the end of July, and up to 60,000 tests per day by the end of August.