ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Free COVID-19 testing is now available, three days a week, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
The service is open to anyone, no appointment necessary, and uses saliva-based PCR tests to produce results in 24 to 48 hours. Site hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursdays.
Walk-ins are welcome, according to the team running the site. Organizers hope by offering a free, flexible service, more community members will jump on board and drop by for regular testing.
Visitors are asked to fill out a short form on their first visit, then it's as simple as running a swab under the tongue for a few seconds. You must bring a form of I.D. and any child under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian with them.
The testing site is run and operated by Medlab, a clinical laboratory in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, with the cost being covered by a federal grant. But bringing the service to the Quad Cities was the brainchild of one hometown employee.
Site Supervisor, Denise Clark-Harris, grew up in the Quad Cities and often comes back to visit family. She noticed that she frequently needed to bring covid tests back for her loved ones and wanted to help spread that accessibility throughout her community.
"All of our community needs to be tested," Clark-Harris said. "It was very important to me."
It's why she reached out to Rock Island's Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, looking for a place to host the site. To Clark-Harris, the center is not only located in an underserved community, but already offers a wide range of services for the surrounding residents.
Right now, the testing site is planning for 800 tests each week, although organizers say that number can increase if the demand warrants it. There's no set timeframe for how long Medlab will keep the service up and running, but Clark-Harris says she hopes to be present in the community for a long time.
"We're gonna be here as long as you need us," she said. "It doesn't make a difference if you come from Moline, if you come from Silvis, East Moline, we're here for everybody that can come to us."
The results of the tests are then texted to your phone roughly one to two days after swabbing. In a community that's been plagued with testing inaccessibility and fully-booked clinics, she hopes this will offer some stability and flexibility to people's lives.
"We want to get people in and out as fast as possible, because people do have very busy lives. And what we're trying to do is also make you stay safe. But then at the same time, we don't want an outstanding line, so that's the reason why we're here and we've got an assembly line going," Clark-Harris said.
One Rock Island resident, Drew Nagle, popped by on the sites opening day, saying he didn't expect the process to work so quickly.
"It was very easy," he said. "And it was very good to have this option."
Nagle says before stopping by the MLK Center he had been struggling to find a test. Even the at-home tests he ordered from the government haven't arrived, he noted.
Taking out that time and guess work of searching for a test is exactly what Clark-Harris hopes will help slow COVID-19 transmissions in the region.
"By you taking the PCR test, that helps you be aware if you've been around someone, you can be able to know how to quarantine at an early stage instead of going on and spreading it to another person," she said. "So what it is about is trying to save lives."