Beware of Pop-Up COVID-19 Testing Sites: IL Health Officials

Beware of Pop-Up COVID-19 Testing Sites: IL Health Officials

Beware of Pop-Up COVID-19 Testing Sites: IL Health Officials

  • Posted by Barrington Hills
  • On January 6, 2022

The sites are showing up in parking lots and sometimes not returning results, asking for personal information and charging patients.

 

ACROSS ILLINOIS — Officials are urging those who need a COVID-19 test to choose wisely where they go.

“Unreputable sites” have been popping up amid another spike in cases — spurred by the omicron coronavirus variant — and a high demand for tests, according to Mark Pfister, executive director Lake County Health Department and Community Health Center. He made the comments during a Tuesday morning Health and Community Services committee meeting.

“If anyone is asking you for money (for testing), that’s a sign. No one should be paying for a COVID-19 test,” Pfister said.

Residents have reported pop-up testing sites in business parking lots and convenience stores.

Steve Bernas, of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago & Northern IL, told ABC 7 that workers who are not masked, ask for a driver’s license or Social Security number, charge money or fail to return test results may be a sign that you are getting “ripped off.”

Officials say it can help to ask some important questions before getting a test.

Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner, told ABC 7 it could be a “red flag” if the staff can’t answer whether the tests are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which lab the results are being sent to.

One man told the Chicago Tribune he visited a pop-up COVID-19 testing site in suburban Cook County on Christmas Eve, finding employees wearing cloth masks — including one who briefly took off her own mask to give instructions to a customer — and a lack of social distancing.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker addressed the issue Monday during a news conference, referring to some as “fly-by-night pop-up testing” sites.

He said some would take patients’ swabs and send those out to a laboratory, but then would not take “responsibility for how long it takes to get that result back from a lab that they may have no relationship with.”

“Some of them are not even returning results at all,” Pritzker said.

The Illinois Attorney General’s Office is looking into the complaints brought to state officials’ attention.

“We intend to make sure that those type of operations are no longer doing to customers and patients what they have been doing that,” Pritzker said.

State officials are urging residents to visit one of Illinois’ free community-based testing sites if they need a test.