County offers COVID testing rest of year

Jun. 23—ANDERSON — The Madison County Health Department will continue to offer COVID-19 testing through the end of the year.

The Indiana Department of Health has extended state-supported COVID-19 testing and laboratory services for local health departments to continue the PCR testing, county department administrator Stephenie Mellinger said Wednesday.

The Cleveland Clinic website states it's a test to detect genetic material from a specific organism, such as a virus. The test detects the presence of a virus if someone has the virus at the time of the test. The test could also detect fragments of the virus even after the person is no longer infected.

"There have been questions and concerns about increased COVID cases, existing policies and travel requirements with testing initially scheduled to end June 30," Mellinger said. "Now we're able to proactively continue the service in case the need increases, rather than reactively, getting the necessary components back in place. That collaboration with IDOH is solid."

Last week, Mellinger said the number of COVID-19 cases in Madison County has been increasing over the past few weeks.

She said the Health Department is seeing 25 to 30 COVID-19 cases on a daily basis.

"When it went to 30 cases a day two weeks ago, I was surprised," she said. "At one point, we were down to five or six cases per day."

The Madison County Health Department provides COVID testing Monday through Friday at the department's office at the corner of Ninth Street and Central Avenue and at all mobile unit events.

The department will also provide rapid testing as long as supplies last, and home test kits are available to the public for free.

Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.