Test Nebraska has ended COVID testing at a hospital in Hastings after demand fell over the last several months. The drive-thru program at Mary Lanning Hospital started last August three days a week and quickly expanded to five days a week, with hundreds of weekly tests.
“We watched it carefully and the numbers continued to decline in April,” Mary Lanning lab director Terri Brown said. “The last week that we were open we saw less than 10 patients a day in our drive-thru, so as a facility we just felt like with caseloads declining and the availability at other sites close by to Hastings that we didn’t need to facilitate the drive-thru with our staffing overhead.”
She said ending the Test Nebraska program at Mary Lanning is a sign that things are much better.
“I don’t really feel concerned over that,” Brown said. “I think that as people get vaccinated, especially in our area, I think that’s driving some of the test volumes too, folks are getting vaccinated and that’s a good thing.”
Brown said there are currently no COVID patients in that hospital and they had no patients with influenza this season. She said staff at the hospital is still masking and will for the foreseeable future.