ANNAPOLIS, MD—Governor Larry Hogan on Thursday toured the location of a new, state-run COVID-19 testing site at UM Laurel Medical Center and announced the locations for nine additional hospital-based testing sites that will open by the end of next week.

The new sites will help to meet rising demand for testing and divert people away from visiting hospital emergency rooms solely to get COVID-19 tests.

“One of the primary goals of these locations is to ease the burden on the hospitals and emergency rooms,” said Governor Hogan. “We are already getting reports that their emergency room traffic for testing has dropped dramatically as a result.”

Hospital-Based Testing Sites

Governor Hogan announced a total of 10 locations for hospital-based testing sites, which are on track to be fully operational and open daily for walk-ups, with no appointment necessary, by the end of next week. They include:

• UM Laurel Medical Center (Laurel)
• UM Charles Regional Medical Center (La Plata)
• UM Capital Region Medical Center (Largo)
• Doctors Community Hospital (Lanham)
• Meritus Health (Hagerstown)
• Frederick Health (Frederick)
• Johns Hopkins (Baltimore)
• University of Maryland Medical Center (Baltimore)
• MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital (Leonardtown)
• Northwest Hospital (Randallstown)

This is in addition to hospital-based testing sites that opened last week at University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health in Bel Air and at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis.

Federally-Supported Surge Testing Site at St. Agnes Hospital

Governor Hogan also announced that, in partnership with the state, the federal government will provide support for a surge testing site at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore.

Emergency Procurements for 500,000 More At-Home Rapid Tests

After notifying the Board of Public Works that the state would be pursuing emergency procurements to acquire more at-home rapid tests to address the national shortage, Governor Hogan on Thursday announced that Maryland is on track to receive another 500,000 rapid tests within the next week. This is in addition to the 1 million rapid tests that the state previously announced.

Sequencing Data: Omicron Is Dominant Variant

Governor Hogan also provided the latest data from the state’s lab partners, which shows that approximately 90 percent of all recently analyzed samples tested positive for the Omicron variant. Of those samples that were hospitalized, 90% have the Omicron variant.

Photo via Pixabay