Hours Scheduled To Change At Ocean County College Drive Thru COVID-19 Testing Site
TOMS RIVER – As the need for coronavirus tests produced by the holidays appears to be on the decline, Ocean County will again modify the hours at the Ocean County College drive thru testing site.
Beginning the week of Feb. 8, the COVID-19 drive thru testing site will operate from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, reducing the days from four to three.
“By monitoring the testing, we know we again can efficiently provide the same number of tests and meet the needs of our residents while scaling back to three days a week,” said Ocean County Public Health Coordinator Daniel Regenye. “The change will help assist in staffing our coronavirus vaccination clinics in the County.”
There will be no testing done on Friday, Feb. 12 and Monday, Feb. 15 due to the Presidents Day holiday.
By increasing the number of appointments taken hourly, close to 400 tests can be administered per day.
“While we are not seeing appointments as of right now for 400 tests on a given day, if the need arises again we can manage it,” Regenye said. “We are averaging about 240 tests each day we are open.”
Ocean County Commissioner Gerry P. Little, who is liaison to the Ocean County Health Department, noted that more than 24,000 tests have been administered at the college site since it opened. As of Jan. 28, Ocean County has recorded 43,705 cases of the coronavirus.
To schedule an appointment for a test Ocean County residents can visit the Ocean County Health Department website at www.ochd.org. If residents have any questions, they can call the Health Department at 732-341-9700, Ext. 7411. Proof of residency will be required. All emergency responders can also access testing at the site.
“The testing site at OCC and our vaccination clinics are the result of a successful partnership with the college, our area hospitals, Sheriff Michael Mastronardy and the Ocean County Office of Emergency Management, the Ocean County Health Department and a host of other collaborators who have come together to make this work for our citizens,” Quinn said. “All of these steps are helping to reduce the spread of this virus and that is the ultimate goal.”
Two websites providing this information are: https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/testing and https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/testing#test-sites.