Coronavirus: Shannon To Offer Same Day Testing

SAN ANGELO, TX— Shannon Medical Center will be offering same-day coronavirus tests beginning Tuesday, July 21st. Currently, all nasal swabs or PCR tests are tested in an outside lab, requiring multiple days for travel and processing.

According to Shannon Medical Center, the drive-thru testing facility on Twohig Street will be able to conduct rapid testing after the hospital received 1,000 additional testing reagents. Rapid testing has been available in San Angelo, but the limited quantity of reagents was reserved for patients who were admitted to the hospital.

“Because we have previously received very limited supplies for faster testing, we reserved these tests for patients admitted to the hospital so that we could quickly determine if they have COVID, start them on recommended treatment and continue to use additional precautions and isolate them from non-COVID patients,” said Lyndy Stone, Press Contact for Shannon Medical Center.

The availability of rapid testing will be contingent on the number of reagents that are available from the vendor. Currently, only one vendor supplies the reagents for the machine available at Shannon Medical Center. The vendor then allocates supplies to hospitals across the country.

In San Angelo, as in many cities and towns, patients are forced to wait more than a week for test results are labs work to complete tests. Facilities are in turn limited by the capacity of tests that can be processed in one day.

“Shannon continues to work diligently to procure necessary supplies so we can reduce the waiting time for COVID testing,” said the spokesperson. “We understand the frustration individuals have as they wait to receive results. Quick turnaround of results is also important to us."