Our response to COVID-19 continues to evolve and this week we are launching testing and contact tracing here at Fenway Health.
We have partnered with the Boston Public Health Commission and Boston Public Schools to use the McKinley School parking lot behind our 1340 Boylston Street location as a COVID-19 testing site. We have set up a tent in the parking lot and are currently piloting drive-through and walk-through tests.
During the pilot phase, testing will be available by appointment to Fenway patients and staff who have been evaluated and referred for testing by a Fenway provider. You can learn more about our testing process here. Please contact your Fenway care team if you have symptoms and believe you may require a COVID-19 test.
We plan to expand the number of daily tests we can perform over the next several weeks. Once our staff and systems are ready, we’ll share more information about the availability of testing for the broader neighborhood and other communities we serve.
In conjunction with our new testing initiative, we are also working with the MA Community Tracing Collaborative to help accelerate efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up the state’s capacity for contact tracing. Contact tracing, which entails identifying and contacting individuals who may have been exposed to COVID-19 so they can isolate/self-quarantine to prevent further spread, is a time-tested public health intervention that has proven to be an essential tool in bringing infectious disease outbreaks under control.
This new collaboration is a partnership between the MA COVID-19 Command Center, the Department of Public Health, the Commonwealth Insurance Connector Authority, Partners in Health, and community health centers. Members of Fenway’s Public Health Programs will be assisting with this initiative, adapting their experience and expertise with contact tracing in the area of HIV, STI, and Hepatitis C transmission. The team also brings multilingual Spanish, Vietnamese, and Portuguese capacity as well as experience working with LGBTQIA+ communities.
Both testing and contact tracing are vital parts of city and state plans to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts and begin returning life to normal. Fenway Health is proud to be contributing to these important efforts.