Our View: Arena testing site plans raise many questions

We recognize the need for more COVID-19 testing across Pennsylvania, including here in our region.

And yes, we agree that there should be a testing site here in the region that is accessible to area residents, given the proliferation of cases in Luzerne County.

However — like several area legislators, local officials and many residents — we have serious reservations about apparent state Health Department plans to locate a testing center for people from multiple northeastern Pennsylvania counties at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township.

We also have serious questions about how the development of those plans has been handled.

We say apparent because as of Thursday, the previously stated intention to have such a site up and running by Sunday seemed somewhat optimistic.

On Thursday, health Secretary Rachel Levine said her department is not considering another location for the Northeastern Pennsylvania mass testing site, although she noted the department also wants to set up additional mass testing sites in the future.

Levine also said appointments will be required and that the arena site will serve the entire region. However, she said she is not expecting people to drive hours to come there for testing.

In plain English, huh?

A drive from one end of Luzerne County to the other on Interstate 81, for example, would take about 45 minutes on a good day. If people are coming from neighboring counties, the trip could take upwards of an hour.

We don’t want want to quibble over driving distances. That’s not the point.

As of Thursday, we couldn’t even get an answer from the state about which counties will be served.

“More information will be provided on when it will open, who will be eligible, etc. in the near future,” health department spokesman Nate Wardle told reporter Bill O’Boyle on Thursday.

Our worry — and that of many local officials who say they have not yet been contacted by the state — is that a testing site aimed at such a broad area will attract a lot of people, who may very well have the virus and who might not necessarily get their test and go straight home, but who might be tempted to stop and shop at one of the big box stores still open in Wilkes-Barre Township.

This is not to say local residents who go for testing wouldn’t do the same thing. But if the site really is aimed at multiple counties, it’s hard not to imagine nervous and frustrated people driving in and deciding to make a shopping or pit stop on the way back to their home counties.

Wardle did say all individuals tested will be given specific instructions in regards to the need to quarantine until, and potentially after, receiving test results, depending on the result.

We hope state officials will reiterate this blunt message to those using the site: Get tested and go home.

Looking at the bigger picture, we hope that state officials will be forthright in communicating their decisions with the region’s legislative delegation and local officials, many of whom — including state Sen. John Yudichak, I-Swoyersville — were frustrated on Thursday about how little they have been told.

We don’t want to be unduly critical of the state Health Department here. Levine and her staff have been handling the crisis with an extraordinary degree of composure that has been reassuring at this intensely stressful time.

But funnelling thousands of people from multiple counties into our hard-hit county for testing simply doesn’t seem like the best approach for those individuals or for our community.

Time is of course of the essence, but we urge Levine and her department to think this one through to see if there are additional locations that can serve people in other counties before directing them here.

— Times Leader