Cempa Community Care is partnering with Alleo Health System and La Paz Chattanooga to offer more COVID-19 testing locations through November.
The announcement this week comes after the grant-funded project of testing at various predominantly Black churches ended last month without similar programs to take its place. The Hamilton County Health Department also permanently moved its testing efforts to the Alstom site on Riverfront Parkway once schools reopened in August.
Throughout the summer, Cempa conducted more than 3,500 tests at its pop-up testing locations throughout the city and in Cleveland and Dayton, Tennessee. The partnership with Alleo and La Paz will create a permanent testing location and schedule for the coming months.
Lily Sanchez, communications coordinator at La Paz, said ensuring access to testing aligns with goals of the organization to advocate for and work with the Hispanic community.
"As we've seen, this pandemic has disproportionately affected the Latinx community and we have truly seen in action the importance of working together to share resources and collaborating efficiently to reach this population," Sanchez said in a statement. "Our hope is that in creating more physical access to testing and information, we are removing as many barriers as possible to ensure the safety and health of our community."
Drive-thru testing will be available at Alleo, located at 4411 Oakwood Drive, on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and Fridays from 2 to 5 p.m. People can also visit La Paz, located at 1402 Bailey Ave., for walk-in testing on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 6 p.m. A physician's referral is not required to be tested.
Shannon Stephenson, CEO of Cempa, said the testing locations are an extension of the mobile clinic efforts earlier in the pandemic.
"In all that we do, our goal is to bring care to those who need it most," reads a statement by Stephenson. "COVID-19 has certainly presented challenges and hurdles that our healthcare community could never have anticipated - but along with our community partners, we remain committed to providing accessible and reliable testing options."
(READ MORE: New COVID-19 guidance from CDC leads to huge drop in active cases in Hamilton County)
Rae Bond, chair of the local COVID-19 Joint Task Force, said during a weekly news briefing the new testing locations offer a great opportunity for testing access in the city.
She said the sites will be important "to supplement the morning testing location that's available at the Alstom testing site."
On Thursday, the health department reported 92 new cases in Hamilton County and 1,069 active cases. There were 70 people hospitalized with the virus and 18 people receiving treatment in the intensive care unit. The health department announced a new death Thursday - a white woman between 61 and 70 years old - marking the 83rd death in the county.
Health department testing is available at the Alstom site every weekday from 7 to 11:30 a.m.
Contact Wyatt Massey at wmassey@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249. Follow him on Twitter @news4mass.