A new COVID-19 testing site will open this week on the North Shore.
Vancouver Coastal Health announced Tuesday the new indoor testing site will open at ICBC’s Capilano Claim Centre, 255 Lloyd Avenue.
The site will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and can handle both walk-in and drive-through testing for anyone aged four and up.
Vancouver Coastal Health is expecting 450 to 600 tests to be administered at the site each day.
The existing outdoor testing centre in the parking lot of Centennial Theatre, which opened at the end of August, will be closed after Wednesday night, according to Vancouver Coastal Health.
Tests are available to anyone with potential COVID-19 symptoms. Health authorities do not recommend testing people who don’t have symptoms, saying that both uses up resources needed for more likely cases and can produce results that are not reliable.
The existing North Vancouver testing site has been busy lately, with a number of those who have used the site reporting a wait time of about two hours to get tested.
Approximate wait times can be looked up on the website edwaittimes.ca and clicking the link for COVID testing sites.
The number of tests being done in B.C. has ramped up dramatically in recent weeks, with about 4,000 tests being performed every day in the Vancouver Coastal Health region. The number of samples testing positive for COVID-19 in Vancouver Coastal Health has hovered between one and two per cent.
