Montco Community Testing Site Shut Down, But Several More To Open

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — The Montgomery County Community College testing site shut down on Tuesday after 55 days in operation, authorities said, as federal funding for county testing expired on June 30.

However, several new walk-up sites will open up around the county beginning on Monday, July 6, as new federal CARES Act funding kicks in. The specific location of these sites will be announced at some point this week.

"This change has been anticipated, and the county has been planning for this transition," Montgomery County Commisioner Val Arkoosh said.

Arkoosh noted that the change to walk-up sites was made "based on resident feedback."

Additionally, the existing community testing sites in Norristown and Pottstown, which will be closed for the rest of this week, will reopen on Monday, July 6.

Officials continue to stress the importance of widespread testing as one of the best ways to defeat the virus. They restarted contact tracing weeks ago in an effort to identify and isolate individuals with the virus to prevent its spread.

Since the county opened the Montgomery County Community College testing site in Whitpain back on April 16, they received results back for 10,622 individuals. A total of 1,331 of these tests were positive, for a rate of 13 percent.

However, that rate dropped to 8 percent over the last two weeks, officials said.

"It has been extraordinary work," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said, praising the site and the local police, health officials, and cooperating agencies who assisted in testing.

Cases in Montgomery County have increased slightly over the past week after declining steadily for several weeks prior to that. The county has seen 281 new cases over the past week, as of Tuesday, as compared to 203 the week prior to that.