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District providing weekly Covid-19 testing to Northport-East Northport community members

Schools

by Joanne Kountourakis | Wed, Jan 5 2022

No waiting, no lines: an A2Z Diagnostics truck, and only a handful of cars, outside Bellerose Avenue Elementary School earlier today. The school is being used on Wednesdays as a testing site made available to the Northport-East Northport community by the district.

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Updated January 18, 2022 8:15am

Last week, the Northport-East Northport UFSD announced it would offer Covid-19 testing for the school community at Bellerose Avenue Elementary School, a building mothballed after the board of education voted in favor of its closing in April 2021. The location has, and is still, being used as a testing site for unvaccinated teachers required to undergo weekly Covid-19 testing. District staff and teachers currently use the facility once a week to take either nasal swab or saliva collection tests.

On December 29, in response to rising Covid-19 numbers, the district opened up testing at Bellerose to a steady stream of school community members, from children to the elderly. Earlier this week, the district sent residents a message announcing that it would continue to offer testing to the entire community on Wednesdays, from 9am to 5pm, at the school. On January 14, the district changed and updated community testing to the following dates; testing will NO longer take place on Wednesdays:

  • Tuesday, January 18

  • Monday, January 24

  • Monday, January 31

  • Monday, February 7

  • Monday, February 14

Testing takes place in Bellerose’s all-purpose room, with RT-PCR results available online within 24-72 hours. Wait times for both testing and results vary, depending on volume and demand.

Rainy and cold weather may have kept residents away earlier today; at 10am only a handful of cars could be seen in the property’s parking lot, and no one was waiting outside to get tested.

The tests are performed by the district’s third-party testing provider, A2Z Diagnostics. There are no appointments and testing is done on a first-come, first-served basis. Residents wishing to receive their results must register on the PatientXChange website before the test, whether from home or while in line.

Bellerose Avenue is located at 253 Bellerose Avenue in East Northport.

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