COLUMBUS, Ind. — The state’s COVID-19 testing site is likely to move out of the National Guard Armory in the Columbus Municipal Airport by the end of August, with the county taking over supervision of community-based testing.
That’s according to an July 17 email sent to local health officials by the Indiana State Department of Health, Bartholomew County Health nursing division director Amanda Organist said.
During the first two weeks in May, the ISDH worked in conjunction with Optum, an international health care and management company, to open up to 50 free testing sites, according to news accounts.
For the next two-and-a-half months, state health officials did not want local health departments doing testing because the counties were swamped with carrying out case investigations and related work, Organist told the Bartholomew County Commissioners Monday.
But now that the state has taken over investigations and contact tracings, the ISDH is asking health officials in all 92 Indiana counties to begin COVID-19 testing, she said. The current contract that the state has with the armory to host the testing site will expire at the end of August, she said.
State health officials have asked each county to let the ISDH know whether they would be willing to provide community-based testing. On Monday, the county commissioners voted unanimously to accept that responsibility.
Due to the community’s size, the ISDH is requiring that two separate testing sites be provided in the Columbus area. A determination has already been made that one testing site will be the Nursing Division of the Bartholomew County Health Dept., 2675 Fox Point Dr., Suite B.
Organist said she met recently with Bartholomew County Emergency Preparedness director Shannan Hinton about where the second testing site might be located. While the health department has reached out to several organizations, no decisions have been made at this time regarding the location of the second testing site, the nursing division director said.
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
