Dodger Stadium will serve and Los Angeles’ newest and largest coronavirus testing location starting Tuesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Friday.
The drive-thru site will have the capacity to test 6,000 people each day. “That’s three times larger than any testing site that we have,” Garcetti said.
It joins 10 others across the city in offering testing free of charge to all Angelenos, regardless of whether they have symptoms of the respiratory disease. Appointments are available at coronavirus.lacity.org/testing or by calling 213-978-1028.
Dozens more sites are available across the county, with varying eligibility requirements. Visit covid19.lacounty.gov/testing/ for a full list.
The Dodger Stadium site is in addition to another nearby on Stadium Way, outside the L.A. Fire Department’s Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center. It will be administered by LAFD and the relief group CORE, which will have 60 staff on hand to help.
CORE, or Community Organized Relief Effort, was founded by actor Sean Penn and has partnered with the city on other virus testing sites.
The Dodgers’ parking lot is notoriously difficult to escape after baseball games. But Garcetti said the site is being designed to move as many people through as quickly as possible, in an effort to cut down on long lines and wait times that persist at other screening locations.
While drivers wait in line, they’ll be able to view instructions on how to complete a test on the stadium’s big screens. “So when drivers get to the front line, they’ll know exactly what to do and how to do it,” the mayor said.
All the city sites use mouth swab tests.
Countywide, there’s currently enough capacity to test 21,000 each day. As of Friday, a total of 433,000 Angelenos had been tested.
The screenings in L.A. County account for 30% of all those conducted in California since the outbreak began, Garcetti said.
But its outbreak continues to outpace testing, and L.A. County accounts for roughly half of all coronavirus cases and deaths statewide. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said Friday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will examine why the region’s case numbers aren’t decreasing more amid ongoing closures and restrictions.
