New drop-in COVID-19 testing clinic opens as new cases remain low
Calgarians no longer need to schedule an appointment to get tested for COVID-19 after a new drop-in testing clinic opened in the city’s southwest Tuesday.
The Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at 1820 Richmond Rd. S.W. is now accepting drop-in patients for novel coronavirus tests daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. All Calgarians, whether they have COVID-19 symptoms or not, are able to access the testing by parking on the building’s west side and entering through the main door.
While Alberta Health Services officials still recommend Calgarians schedule their test online through ahs.ca/covid19 or by calling Health Link 811, the new location is meant to provide a testing option for people who are on the run.
The Alberta Health Services Calgary zone now has six COVID-19 testing centres. All other centres only accept patients by appointment.
Testing is done by a throat swab, which indicates whether a person had the coronavirus at the time of testing but cannot determine whether a person has previously had the virus.
Alberta has the capacity to complete 7,000 COVID-19 tests a day. However, the province is only using about half that capacity on average each day.
COVID-19 numbers in Alberta continue to trend downward after the province announced only 13 new cases Tuesday, tied for the lowest mark since March 10, the day before the World Health Organization named COVID-19 a pandemic.
The new positive cases were the result of more than 3,200 tests, a 0.4 per cent positive rate.
There have now been 7,057 coronavirus cases detected in Alberta, including 377 active cases, or five per cent of all cases.
As well, for a third straight day, Alberta reported no new COVID-19 deaths Tuesday. The province’s death toll from the coronavirus remains at 143.
As of Tuesday, there are 51 Albertans currently in hospital with COVID-19, six of whom are in intensive care units, marking a slight decrease in hospitalizations from Monday. A total of 6,537 Albertans have now recovered from the virus.
With the low case numbers, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he supports moving to Stage 2 of the province’s relaunch plan — allowing personal services like massage and tattoo parlours, as well as libraries and movie theatres, to reopen — on its tentative date of June 19.
“I’m still a bit nervous about the active cases in Calgary,” Nenshi said. “They’re a bit higher than I would like, but by and large I’d say Calgary’s been doing a good job on physical distancing.
“As the restrictions get eased, the power to get more restrictions eased is in your hands. So I really want to remind Calgarians, do physical distancing as best as you can.”