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Massachusetts fitness officials plan to close the last 11 state-funded COVID testing sites by the end of March, marking a turning point in the state’s reaction to the pandemic.
These sites offer loose PCR testing regardless of insurance coverage, even for others with no symptoms or known exposure to COVID. PCR tests are the most accurate way to diagnose COVID, especially for others without symptoms.
State sites have provided more than 4. 3 million swabs since July 2020, but demand has declined. According to Department of Public Health officials, the sites conducted fewer than 1,000 COVID tests during the week of February, compared to 12,000 tests during the week last summer.
Last spring, the number of free sites dropped from 41 to 11. The remaining sites, in Everett, Framingham, Lawrence, Lynn, New Bedford, Randolph, Revere, Springfield and Worcester, will close March 31.
State fitness officials said the closures are a shift toward treating COVID more like other respiratory illnesses.
“As we enter a new bankruptcy of life with COVID-19, this large-scale, state-funded PCR verification is no longer the use of resources,” the officials said.
People who want PCR tests, which are processed in labs, can still get them at pharmacies, urgent care centers, number one care offices, and network fitness centers. criteria.
Rapid antigen tests, which can be used at home and report effects within minutes, are also available at retail stores and pharmacies. expires on May 11 when the national public fitness emergency ends, in position since the early days of COVID in 2020.
The state’s largest fitness insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, told WBUR they have not yet covered the costs of those tests at the end of the federal requirement.
Free antigen tests can still be obtained from the federal government: American families can request four immediate tests through this program, while supplies last.
Some fitness experts worry that upcoming adjustments in state and federal policies will temporarily make it harder for COVID testing to pay for. This has broad implications for preventing COVID transmission, according to Kaiser Family Foundation researchers.
“We deserve to think about it in terms of equity,” Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said in an email. “People who can’t get tested will be less likely to get tested and therefore more likely to be exposed.
“We want to make sure certain tests are readily available, and free!, for those who want it most,” he said.
COVID cases and hospitalizations have declined since a slight increase in January, after the winter break. Last week, state officials reported that less than 6% of tests came back positive for the coronavirus, compared to just 14% in early January. Local knowledge of wastewater has also shown a decrease in coronavirus levels.
Dr. Sabrina Assoumou, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center, said those are encouraging signs. “We’re in one place,” he said.
But Assoumou said the state is in a position to reopen testing sites in the future, if necessary: “It’s moderate to start removing some of those extensive measures that we had in position, so we can expand them if we want to,” she says.
“We are moving in the right direction,” he added, “but we still want to remain vigilant because we don’t know, there may be a very different variant from the variants noted so far. “
Dr. Robert Klugman, who works on the COVID reaction at UMass Memorial Health, also said the state’s resolve to close testing sites is reasonable, though he claimed some other people may simply “fall into the cracks” and lose out on the test.
“If volumes go down and continue to fall, the return on investment is very low for those last 11 sites,” he said. “So it’s not the best solution, but it’s a logical and moderate solution from a fiscal point of view. “
State officials did not respond to an inquiry about the charge of operating the control sites.
Boston Public Health Commission said they will continue to provide loose COVID vaccines and at five permanent clinics across the city, in Hyde Park, Roxbury, Allston, Dorchester and City Hall. The tests will be released regardless of insurance status, officials said.
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Senior Health Reporter at TwitterPriyanka Dayal McCluskey is a senior health reporter for WBUR.
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