Municipality of Anchorage to Continue Drive-Through Testing Site Operations
The Municipality of Anchorage, in partnership with Providence Health & Services Alaska and the State of Alaska, will continue COVID-19 testing services at the drive-through testing site at 4115 Lake Otis Parkway beyond June 12, 2020.
“The Municipality was concerned when our partners at Providence told us they would need to close the drive-through testing site,” said Bill Falsey, Incident Commander of the Emergency Operations Center “We knew we needed a solution to keep this very accessible site open for the community.”
The testing site, near the intersection of Lake Otis and East 42nd Avenue, opened in mid-March as a multi-hospital partnership to prepare for a surge in suspected cases and if greater testing capacity was needed. At that time, no community-based testing was available in Anchorage. With more surgeries and procedures now available, hospital staff supporting the testing site have returned to care for patients in their respective facilities. The site has proved critically important to limiting the spread of COVID-19 in Alaska. During the past twelve weeks, this effort provided more than 8,400 COVID-19 tests to the Anchorage community.
Current Issue
June 2021
The Municipality has entered into a contract with Providence Health & Services to continue providing COVID-19 testing at the Lake Otis location. The Municipality will support the site financially. Providence will continue to provide the physical infrastructure and will contract with Fairweather for staffing. The State of Alaska will provide testing logistics, such as supplies and processing.
The testing site will be open from 11:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. People must have a referral before being tested. Referrals can be obtained during a live, phone or a virtual appointment with a clinician. Testing involves collecting a swab from the nose or mouth, which is then sent to a lab for testing. People are contacted by their ordering provider with results as soon as they are available. For information on additional testing sites, the Municipality of Anchorage maintains a testing site locator on its COVID-19 site at www.muni.org/covid-19.
In This Issue
Alaska Problems Require Alaska Solutions
June 2021
On January 16, a fire destroyed the water plant and washeteria in the southwest Alaska village of Tuluksak. For the village of about 350 people, it was a devastating blow. The water plant was the only source of drinking water in the village, in which the primarily Yup’ik residents lack indoor plumbing and rely on honey buckets, not uncommon in the flat, swampy region.