Starting Monday, Dec. 20, East Hampton Town's Covid-19 testing site will move to the East Hampton Center for Humanity, the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons, at 110 Stephen Hand's Path.
Previously located at the far corner of the Town Hall property, the town's drive-through testing site has lately had a line of drivers waiting for tests that often snaked almost all the way to Pantigo Road.
Test hours are Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Appointments are not necessary, but advance registration online at bit.ly/32kNa9g may be helpful for those seeking testing.
According to a town press release, PCR tests (both saliva and nasal cavity) given at the Center for Humanity are free, but rapid tests cost $109, or $59 for employees of East Hampton Town or Village. Rapid tests are of limited availability due to high demand. The town also said that wait times for PCR test results will take longer than originally anticipated, again because of high demand.
"During this holiday period, and period of a significant spike in Covid cases, PCR test results may take at least 36 hours or more to be reported back from the lab," the town said in its announcement last week.
A list of additional nearby test sites can be found online at bit.ly/3Edwxtq.
Word of the new test site came as the percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 in Suffolk County spiked to a seven-day average of 9.6 percent — and 10.5 percent on Saturday alone. Of the 18,574 test results reported on Saturday in Suffolk, 1,950 were positive.
Forty-four people were admitted to hospitals across the county that day, including four more intensive care patients, bringing the total number of I.C.U. patients with Covid to 58. The number of total hospitalizations decreased to 312, a difference of fewer 16 patients from the prior day. Four people died of Covid-19 or related conditions on Saturday in Suffolk, bringing the county's death toll to 3,744 since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020.