Traffic Being Restricted In Louisville Shawnee Park To Accommodate New Coronavirus Testing Site

Press release from the City of Louisville:

April 23, 2020

State partnering with Kroger Health on testing, April 27-May 8

To accommodate a safe and secure mobile COVID-19 testing site, Shawnee Park will be closed to vehicle traffic starting tomorrow at 6 a.m., and pedestrian access will be restricted.

The Park will be open to pedestrians on weekends but closed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. week days. Vehicles will not be allowed in the park at all during the duration of the testing effort, which begins with set up tomorrow and cleanup on through Saturday, May 9.

Pedestrians will continue to have full access to nearby Chickasaw Park during the Shawnee Park restrictions.

The state of Kentucky and Kroger Health are establishing a mobile COVID-19 testing site in the park to provide up to 330 tests per day over the next two weeks.

Testing will be conducted from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays starting Monday, April 27. The tests are available to the general public, but you must register at www.thelittleclinic.com/drivethru-testing to be screened and scheduled.

Mayor Greg Fischer said the site in Shawnee Park was chosen in an effort to get more testing in west Louisville, which has a large population of African American residents.

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African Americans have been disproportionately suffering and dying from COVID-19 in our state and our nation, the Mayor said, “And that’s completely unacceptable. It’s also an indicator of the work we have to do as a state and as a country. In our city alone, there’s a 12-year gap in life expectancy between certain ZIP codes in our community. That’s something that my Metro Government team has been working to reverse for years.”

For more information about Louisville’s work to fight the spread of COVID-19 in our city, go to Louisvilleky.gov.

This press release was produced by the City of Louisville. The views expressed here are the author’s own.