On Sunday, Alabama’s largest church stopped its in-person worship services. By Tuesday, it started hosting drive-through coronavirus tests in one of its parking lots.

In the span of just two days, doctors in Birmingham tested 977 people from across the state by using the parking lot and volunteers from Church of the Highlands, according to Dr. Robert Record, who is helping to lead the effort. The drive-through effort at one of America’s largest churches is part of a larger nationwide push for more information about coronavirus as more testing locations began to pop up this week.

The number of confirmed cases for coronavirus in Alabama as of Tuesday was 39, 21 of which were in Jefferson County where Church of the Highlands is located, according to website. On Tuesday, the testing at the church confirmed eight positive coronavirus cases, Record said. With testing still in short supply but in high demand, patients must have symptoms to be tested.

 

“We navigate how sick they are,” he said. “One of our goals is that people not go into a doctor’s office and not go into a hospital if they don’t have to.”

During the testing, a doctor speaks with patients through a cellphone and evaluates them through the car window. On Tuesday, he said, two people seemed to be in respiratory distress, and they sent them to the hospital; one was put on a respirator there.

 

Patients don’t roll down the window until the very last 30 seconds where someone in protective gear swabs them. Those with health care are billed through their insurance; others do not have to pay for the test.

“You show up, you’ll be treated like the most affluent person in the world,” Record said. “In the next few weeks, we’ll find out how to pay for it later.”

 

Awesome job they have been doing.  Look at the numbers in this post.