Twin River Coronavirus Testing Site To Close

PROVIDENCE, RI — The rapid coronavirus testing site at Twin River Casino will close Saturday, Gov. Gina Raimondo announced Wednesday. The closure is part of the state's effort to transition from large-scale testing sites to integrating testing into the health care infrastructure.

The testing site, staffed by the National Guard, has been winding down in previous weeks, Raimondo said, down to only a few hundred per day in recent days. The site was always intended to be temporary.

"It's time to unwind it," she said.

CVS, who partnered with the state to create the site, launched 10 drive-through test sites at pharmacy locations around the state in late May. These have more than offset the testing volume from the Twin River site, Raimondo said.

As the state continues its phased reopening process, testing is being integrated into communities and existing health care structures, rather than a few, large-scale sites.

"A year from now we're still going to be doing testing," Raimondo said. "We're still going to be doing contact tracing."

Once the Twin River site closes, rapid tests will no longer be available to most Rhode Islanders. These tests, while useful at the height of the pandemic, are generally less effective that traditional nasal swabs that take several days to process. Rapid tests will still be used in certain circumstances, Raimondo said, such as in the case of an outbreak when the need for a fast result outweighs the accuracy concerns.

The number of new coronavirus cases in Rhode Island continue to decline, along with deaths and hospitalizations. On Wednesday, the Rhode Island Department of Health reported 73 new cases and six deaths.

There are currently 104 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Rhode Island, 20 of whom are in an intensive care unit and 16 on ventilators.

Of the six victims, one was in their 70s, two were in their 80s, one was in their 90s and two were over the age of 100.