STERLING, Ill. — With cases of COVID-19 on the rise across the country, getting access to a COVID-19 test is proving more and more difficult. Here in the Quad Cities, there aren’t any mass testing sites open, with both Test Iowa and the site at the Quad Cities Expo Center shut down. The closest mass site is in Sterling, Illinois.
There you can receive a SHIELD test. The test site is set up within Sterling High School. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Sara Dail says it has been an incredible benefit to both the school district and the community.
Tests are available other places near by at places like CVS or HyVee, but most take two to three days to get results. Dr. Dail says that isn’t the case with the SHIELD test, “The shield results only take, they say, up to 24 hours, but usually they're in the same evening that they test.”
Kim Walsh works at Sterling High School, and she’s received the SHIELD test a couple of times now. She shares it’s a pretty easy process, “It’s been very easy to do this testing. Just takes a little doing.”
That “doing” she’s referring to is what those in charge call the “drooling process.” The test itself collects saliva into a little tube which is then sent off to a lab in Rockford, Illinois to be tested. Tests are sent off each night, helping results come back much quicker.
Those who are coming to receive a test are asked to create an online portal with SHIELD ahead of time. It’s on that portal that results are posted. Dr. Dail says she’s noticed people coming from further away to get access to a test, “We’ve had people drive over an hour to come and get a test. And usually during community times we have quite the line.”
She says cars will line up as far as two blocks deep as community members wait to get their tests. The site has been running out of Sterling since April of 2020. It was back then that it took two to three days to get your results from any test location you went to.
There’s a sense of deja-vu right night, with those kind of test times coming back. Dr. Dail says that’s one of the great benefits to already having a SHIELD site set up.
With testing requirements for teachers and health care workers who decide not to get vaccinated creeping closer, Dr. Dail says she knows more and more places that are looking to have SHIELD testing sites as well. “We're going to see an uptick once that deadline comes. We've been contacted by local agencies and hospitals about SHIELD testing, so that they can potentially send their employees over to get our SHIELD testing as well.”