22 Percent Of Montco's Population Has Been Tested For Coronavirus

NORRISTOWN, PA — In a reflection of the expansion of widespread testing in the region, the county has run coronavirus tests on 180,165 residents in Montgomery County since March 7, officials said Wednesday. That accounts for about 22 percent of the entire county population.

A total of 10,933 of those tests have come back positive, for roughly a 6.06 percent positivity rating since the start of the pandemic.

That rating is now down to what is considered by health officials to be a good number: 3.04 percent. It's been below the "concerning" level of 5 percent since June 18.

For some time test results were lagging, sometimes up to three weeks, crippling contact tracing efforts just as school districts were considering reopening buildings to in-person instruction.

But the situation seems to have been remedied through a recent partnership with a North Carolina-based laboratory, Mako Medical. The county said that Mako is required to return test results within 36 hours. The tests are flown by private plane from Montgomery County to North Carolina, and thus far, results have been sent back well inside the required window.

Testing capacity in the county has grown significantly since the first site at Temple University's Ambler campus opened in March. While that site has since shut down, the county, as of Wednesday, maintains six different sites in Ardmore, Green Lane, Lansdale, Norristown, Pottstown, and Willow Grove.

The county since increased its daily test load to 50 tests per day at each site, for a total of 300 daily tests across the county. They plan to increase their testing capacity again by mid-September.

Though there has been a slight vacillation up and down in certain categories, the county's overall metrics have remained strong and relatively steady for weeks now, officials say.