MCHD Administrator: “They could potentially do more than 250” at McLean County testing site

Posted on May 22, 2020
There have been nine deaths in the county. (Photo courtesy: McLean County Health Department)

By AJ Harris and Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – When Reditus assumes testing responsibility from the Illinois National Guard at the McLean County Fairgrounds, the sky may be the limit.

McLean County Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight said she is optimistic that anyone who needs a test will be able to receive one.

“In terms of max daily capacity, I’ve been told that they do not have a limit for daily test numbers that they can perform, so they could potentially do more than 250.”

Health officials expect test result turnaround times to remain in the 3-5 day period, although that could change depending on the volume of people that utilize the facility.

On a good note, Mcknight announced McLean County had no new cases of COVID-19. McKnight says the countywide total stands at 196 cases.

However, with social distancing guidelines relaxing, McKnight expects cases to increase.

“We could make our best-educated guess on what we perceive to be happening. We know that as people are going to be moving around and coming into contact with more people, we do expect cases to go up.

” Our best public health education for people would be to shelter in place and stay at home. As a community and as a county, we are looking at what we can do to try to ensure the best safety measures that we can going forward.”

The testing center at the Interstate Center in Bloomington was scheduled to shut down Friday before a new deal with the Pritzker administration was reached, keeping the testing site in Bloomington.

During his daily press briefing heard on AM 1230 WJBC, Gov. Pritzker announced 2,758 cases and 110 additional deaths moving the statewide cases to 105,444 and 4,715 deaths.

AJ Harris can be reached at [email protected]. 

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected]. 

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