Coronavirus

UW-La Crosse Surge Testing site closes Jan. 22

Published

3 years ago

January 16, 2021

Photo Credit: UW-La Crosse

The option for La Crosse area residents to utilize a local university’s free, rapid-response COVID-19 testing site will end in less than a week.

UW-La Crosse announced the Surge Testing program in UWL’s Cartwright Center will end Friday, Jan. 22. For more than two months, the program provided thousands of test with the capability of administering 550 each day.

“It was our privilege to help bring this valuable service to our community,” Chancellor Joe Gow says. “We appreciate everyone who has used this program to make informed decisions regarding health and safety.”

People can still sign up to be tested, online registration is required. The self-administered tests are conducted on the third floor of the Cartwright Center with results available within 15 minutes, according to the University. Those without symptoms who receive a positive test are asked to get a confirmatory PCR test.

The Surge Testing sites are a collaboration among the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, eTrueNorth, and UW System campuses. Since early November, more than 200,000 surge tests were administered across the state.

In a release, UW-La Crosse said the program was designed to catch asymptomatic spreaders of the virus by increasing testing access for six weeks. The program was initially meant to end in mid-December, but surplus resources allowed the program to continue a month past its expected end date.

Other local COVID-19 testing options can be found online.

Kaitlyn Riley

Kaitlyn Riley’s passion for communications started on her family’s dairy farm in Gays Mills, Wis. Wanting to share agriculture’s story, she studied strategic communications and broadcast journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In college, she held officer positions with the Association of Women in Agriculture and Badger Dairy Club while volunteering as a news reporter for the college radio station. She also founded the university’s first agricultural radio talk show, AgChat. In her professional career, Kaitlyn has worked in radio, print and television news doing everything from covering local events to interviewing presidential candidates, and putting back on her barn boots to chat with farmers in the field. Today, Kaitlyn can be seen covering local stories that matter to you in the La Crosse area.