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The Cambridge Health Alliance is set to launch a testing center that will be free to all city residents above the age of 7 on Friday.
The testing center, which will be held in a tent at the CHA’s East Cambridge Care Center, will provide tests to anyone who makes an appointment in advance, regardless of symptoms, insurance, or immigration status.
“Expanding testing to all Cambridge residents is another important step in our region’s response to COVID-19,” Cambridge Health Alliance CEO Assaad J. Sayah said in a press release. “I appreciate our partnership with the City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Public Health Department to meet this critical public health imperative.”
Test results will come back within five days, according to Thursday’s announcement. The center will be open on weekdays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.
To make an appointment for a test, residents are asked to call the Alliance’s hotline at (617) 665-2928.
“The Cambridge Health Alliance provides vital health care services to many Cambridge residents, and plays a critical role in the City’s COVID-19 response,” City Manager Louis A. DePasquale and Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said in a joint statement. “Expanding the testing capacity for COVID-19 is an important part of the Commonwealth’s strategy for reopening, and this testing site will be a critical resource for Cambridge residents.”
Cambridge Health Alliance — which provides service to Cambridge, Somerville, and a part of Boston — partners with several University schools, including the Harvard Medical School, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
Cambridge has had 808 residents test positive for the virus, 63 of whom have died. There have been more than 73,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,552 deaths in Massachusetts as a whole.
Massachusetts’ current stay-at-home advisory and its closure of non-essential businesses runs through May 18. Governor Charlie D. Baker ’79 said Thursday that the state has “a lot of work to do” before getting the virus under control.
The Cambridge testing location will be the third such center the CHA operates. It will be open for drive-through and to residents who arrive on foot or by bicycle.
—Staff writer Jasper G. Goodman can be reached at jasper.goodman@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jasper_Goodman.
