BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The City of Boston is setting up a new high-capacity COVID testing center in Roxbury.
Boston Mayor Wu introduced the site, based in the Bruce C. Bolling building on Washington Street. Wu said the new testing site would have room for 20 people to be tested at once, with up to 50 people in line inside the building. If there is overflow more than 50 people, cards will be given out to those who can't fit in line with a time to come back so they don't need to wait outside. The turnaround time should be about 24 hours.
The site will be run by CIC Health, the company that ran the major vaccination sites at Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium last year.
The site will give PCR tests out Tuesday through Saturday, between noon to 8:00 PM, and was set to open right after the mayor's press conference on Tuesday.
Boston Public Health Commissioner Bisola Ojikutu said she was cautiously optimistic on this current Omicron surge, saying that the city's positivity rate had dropped 5 percentage points last week and daily cases were down 33%. She did warn that hospitalizations have still been rising in the city.
Mayor Wu also noted that a thousand more city workers have been vaccinated since last Monday, and those without proof of vaccination will start to be put on administrative leave by Jan. 24.
WBZ's Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) reports:
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