Coronavirus Test Sites In Montco, Philly Lose Funding, Will Close

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — The Temple University-Ambler and Citizens Bank Park coronavirus testing sites will shut down due to funding restraints, officials confirmed on Tuesday. Both sites will lose federal funding after Friday, April 10, and that will mark their last day in operation

Sign up for Patch news alerts here.

The county sites are run only partially by local government, and are sustained with significant federal resources from the Community-Based Testing Sites program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which was launched last month to provide immediate resources to critical areas around the country.

"I want to clarify this is not the county's decision," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, while calling the site a "tremendous opportunity" and thanking the federal government for their support to this point.

FEMA said the decision to withdraw funding was motivated by the FDA's recent approval of nasal swab tests which can be self-administered, which will ultimately greatly reduce the demand for medical equipment and healthcare workers at testing sites.

However, workers and equipment were not the reason the Montgomery County and Philadelphia sites shut down. Specifically, the federal government provided Montgomery County with the swabs and test kits, as well as the contract with LabCorp to do the testing, which Arkoosh called the "great limiting factor." Montgomery County, further, does not have their own testing supplies at this point, and the self-administered nasal swab tests must still be sent away to a lab.

It's not clear when, or if, the county will obtain the self-administered tests. But for the short term, at least, there will be no county site and no county testing after April 10.

A FEMA spokesperson told Patch via email Tuesday that the withdrawal paves the way for local control of these sites.

"Many states have already begun transitioning these programs, and other states have implemented testing sites based on the CBTS model," the spokesperson said. "Transitioning fully to state-managed operation creates an opportunity for the states to better serve their own communities, while leveraging federal support to augment their state's success."

On the bright side, all Montgomery County hospitals now offer testing sites, something which was not true when the Temple-Ambler site opened in March.

Additionally, Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine added that the state will work with both Montgomery County and Philadelphia to ensure they can still test residents in the future. "Both counties have plans to be able to continue testing," she said.

Further details on precisely what those plans are were not immediately available. On Monday, Montgomery County did announce they were creating a "mobile hospital" unit to handle additional cases, but it's not clear if testing will ultimately be done there. Philadelphia has numerous other testing sites still running.

While the Citizens Bank Park site was the largest, Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said it was accounting for less than 10 percent of tests in the city.

FEMA cited the low testing figures at that site as their justification for withdrawing resources there.

Philadelphia officials said testing kits from the Citizens Bank Park site will be distributed to indoor testing sites. Additionally, FEMA-provided PPE will be sent to hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Just over 4,200 southeastern Pennsylvania residents have been tested at Temple-Ambler since that site opened in March. Officials said they hope to have more than 4,

>>>Full coverage of coronavirus in Pennsylvania here.