New drive-up coronavirus test site opens at R.I. Convention Center

PROVIDENCE — A new drive-up coronavirus testing site at the Rhode Island Convention Center’s parking garage opened Tuesday.

The site will replace the Rhode Island College testing site, which did its last tests Monday, and the testing site at the Community College of Rhode Island, to be “phased out in the near future,” the Department of Health said.

The garage site, at 114 W. Exchange St., will be able to do 1,500 tests a day, more than the 1,200 combined at RIC and CCRI, the Health Department said. It will also be able to do tests when the weather is bad; the outdoor sites have had to close at times.

The access road connecting West Exchange and Sabin streets will be restricted to testing site and emergency vehicle traffic. And because it’s a garage, big vehicles, like trailers and RVs, won’t be able to use it, for now.

Testing at the site will be open to symptomatic people, who can get a test scheduled by a health-care provider, and some asymptomatic people, like those who work closely with other people and those who have traveled to a place with a lot of cases.

People have to make an appointment before getting tested. Appointments are available at portal.ri.gov and general information about testing is available at https://health.ri.gov/covid/testing/.

Testing for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, has been a major issue since the start of the pandemic. At first, not enough tests were available; now, because of major outbreaks in other states, people are waiting days, in some cases more than a week, to get their results back.

The Rhode Island Department of Health on Tuesday reported one coronavirus-related death and said 53 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

That brings the total toll in the state to 996 deaths and 17,986 known cases.

There were 64 patients with COVID-19 in Rhode Island hospitals on Sunday, the most recent date for which data were available, the same as the previous day. Four were in intensive care; two were on ventilators.

In addition to the 53 positive tests, 2,318 tests came back negative Wednesday, for a 2.2% positive rate. When only those testing negative for the first time are counted, the positive rate was 4.05%.

— With Journal Staff reports

bamaral@providencejournal.com

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Positive cases in R.I.: 17,986 (53 reported Monday)

Negative tests in R.I.: 291,322 (2,318 reported Monday, 2.2% positive rate)

R.I. coronavirus-related deaths: 996 (1 reported Monday)

Rhode Islanders hospitalized with coronavirus: 64 (4 in intensive care)

Positive cases in Massachusetts: 114,034

Massachusetts coronavirus-related deaths: 8,450

Positive cases in U.S.: 3,858,686

U.S. coronavirus-related deaths: 141,426