COVID-19 testing to resume at Holyoke Community College

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - COVID-19 testing will resume at Holyoke Community College starting Wednesday. This time, it is a mobile testing trailer that is coming after the state sponsored ‘Stop the Spread’ testing at the college closed last month.

The mobile COVID-19 testing site at HCC also comes as other local-area testing sites are seeing an uptick in testing.

“There were some changes with the testing numbers going down and we were approached by the city saying we were willing to host a mobile testing site here,” said Narayan Sampath, chief financial officer and vice president for administration and finance at HCC.

Sampath told Western Mass News how the idea for a mobile COVID-19 testing site came about. The plan is to have the trailer in parking lot ‘M’ outside the Bartley Center for Athletics and Recreation.

“It’s open to the public and we got flyers that have been distributed by us,” Sampath added.

The state sponsored ‘Stop the Spread’ site closed on March 31.

“The rationale behind not having the testing center here was the state consolidated the testing centers and had about nine or ten of them across the state, so the closest one was in Springfield,” Sampath explained.

He said students and staff have shown a renewed interest in getting tested.

“We see people who want to get tested with the new variant coming around, but it’s not as much of an increase as there was let’s say in January or February,” Sampath noted.

Speaking of Springfield, we checked in with the American Medical Response team at the Eastfield Mall. We’re told they’re seeing a rise in people get tested.

“Testing come up a bit. We were in the 200s on the daily basis up until recently and yesterday, we actually peaked up over 300,” said AMR Operations Supervisor Jeff Suriano.

Testing at HCC is avaiable on a walk-in basis, but appointments are preferred and can be made online.

Copyright 2022. Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.