MARQUETTE — The Superior Walk-in and Family Health Center will be offering limited drive-through COVID-19 testing at its clinic along U.S. 41 in Marquette for six hours per week starting on Tuesday.

The testing will be offered from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on a first-come-first-serve basis to anyone who is experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus. Health care workers who are asymptomatic are also able to receive the service during the testing time frames.

Superior Walk-in bookkeeper and registered nurse Rondi Olson said the location plans to do between 75 to 100 tests per week.

No appointment is necessary to get the drive-through testing, but Olson asks individuals who might consider coming to get a test to use discretion and take the needs of others in the community under consideration. Antigen testing for COVID-19 is only going to work with people who have active infections, she said.

“For most of those people, active disease is only going to be active for 10 days. It is important that people truly be symptomatic. If you want to know if you have had the virus, you can get an antibody test in the future,” Olson said. “Due to supply shortages, we are unable to test other asymptomatic persons — including essential workers who are not in health care — at this time.”

COVID-19 symptoms include fever, dry cough and shortness of breath, but the disease can also involve other symptoms, she said.

Testing is performed with a nasopharyngeal swab, which means a long Q-tip is inserted into the cavity between the nose and mouth for 15 seconds and rotated several times.

The swab is then repeated on the other side to make sure there is enough material collected.

Those who would like to be tested should bring their driver’s license and health insurance information, Olson said.

The sample will be collected from the patient at their car, Olson said, and the person collecting the sample will not touch any of the patient’s belongings.

She said as testing supplies become more plentiful, more tests on asymptomatic individuals may be conducted.

“We are limiting our asymptomatic testing to health care workers right now because a health care worker is going to come into contact with more vulnerable people every day,” Olson said.

She credits state officials for acting early to contain the spread of the virus.

“We are actually very, very fortunate in the (Upper Peninsula),” Olson said. “We do not have a lot of the disease up here and we will be able to contain it better. I appreciate Governor (Gretchen) Whitmer closing everything down, because it means that we have this testing available that we did not have available at the end of March. With better testing, we will be able to determine who has it, who doesn’t have it, and who is immune.”

For more information on testing at any of the Superior Walk-in Clinic & Family Health locations, visit the company’s Facebook page or call the clinic location at 906-226-2233.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at lbowers@miningjournal.net.