- Published: Wednesday, December 16, 2020 01:39 PM
Originally published in Chicago Tribune, December 15, 2020.
Residents seeking COVID-19 tests have a new free option from the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Appointments must be made online, and the tests are given indoors at the Bernard Horwich JCC, 3003 W. Touhy Ave., Chicago, which is close to Lincolnwood and Skokie. The site has a free parking lot.
On a recent Wednesday in the 11 a.m. time slot, only about seven people arrived for the tests, though the room can hold many more. Most people were in and out within 30 minutes. Chairs are set up in a socially-distanced fashion, and test-takers check in at a desk, then wait to be called to the testing area, where a medical worker inserts a swab part way into their nostrils in a PCR test.
State Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Democrat from the 8th district, said his office worked with others to set up three previous testing sites before this one. At an outdoor, drive-up testing site in Lincolnwood in November, wait times grew to more than two hours, and one day of testing had to be cancelled due to bad weather.