Inland Hospital Building Drive-Thru COVID Testing Site for Winter

According to the Kennebec Journal, Waterville's Northern Light Inland Hospital in opening a new drive-through COVID-19 testing site near their Kennedy Memorial Drive Campus near the trailhead to the Inland Woods.

This new build is being designed to replace the current testing locations and is going to be 'winterized' so that medical gear, patients and staff can remain safe from Maine's winter elements while still protecting patients inside the hospital from people being tested for the virus.

According to officials at Northern Light Inland Hospital they predict the new testing site will be open as of Wednesday, November 4th of this year. When this happens, the car-side testing that the hospital had previously been doing at its 246 Kennedy Memorial Drive location and the also at the walk-in care site at 174 Kennedy Memorial Drive. According to the Kennebec Journal article, the 174 KMD location will still continue to see patients for regular services and "assess symptomatic patients".

It is likely that, like Northern Light Inland Hospital, we will continue to see major medical facilities begin to adapt how they are handling their outside or "tented' testing facilities as winter draws near. Additionally, hospitals will begin to brace for an uptick of influenza as Maine barrels towards both colder weather and the depths of the flu season. Both influenza and COVID-19 can present with almost identical symptoms and, at the initial diagnosis, will be tough for medical staff to differentiate between until a positive test of either influenza or COVID is returned.

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