During the testing, a doctor speaks with patients through a cellphone and evaluates them through the car window. Photo / via Twitter
During the testing, a doctor speaks with patients through a cellphone and evaluates them through the car window. Photo / via Twitter
On Sunday, Alabama's largest church stopped its in-person worship services. By Tuesday, it started hosting drive-through coronavirus tests in one of its parking lots.
In the span of just two days, doctors in Birmingham tested 977 people from across the state by using the parking lot and volunteers from Church of the Highlands, according to Dr. Robert Record, who is helping to lead the effort. The drive-through effort at one of America's largest churches is part of a larger nationwide push for more information about coronavirus as more testing locations began to pop up this week.
The number of confirmed cases for coronavirus in Alabama as of Tuesday was 39, 21 of which were in Jefferson County where Church of the Highlands is located, according to AL.com. On Tuesday, the testing at the church confirmed eight positive coronavirus cases, Record said. With testing still in short supply but in high demand, patients must have symptoms to be tested.
"We navigate how sick they are," he said. "One of our goals is that people not go into a doctor's office and not go into a hospital if they don't have to."
During the testing, a doctor speaks with patients through a cellphone and evaluates them through the car window. On Tuesday, he said, two people seemed to be in respiratory distress, and they sent them to the hospital; one was put on a respirator there.
Patients don't roll down the window until the very last 30 seconds where someone in protective gear swabs them. Those with health care are billed through their insurance; others do not have to pay for the test.
"You show up, you'll be treated like the most affluent person in the world," Record said. "In the next few weeks, we'll find out how to pay for it later."
Day 3 of the #coronavirus drive-thru testing is over at Church of the Highlands. Today health care professionals tested nearly 800 people - more than double what they were able to do on day 1 at the Grandview campus. @WVTM13pic.twitter.com/3uAsM3bqiy
Church of the Highlands, which usually averages 50,000 for weekend services, is a prominent congregation in one of the most religious states in the nation. Its lead pastor, Chris Hodges, has been in touch with the governor of the state, according to Record. The church, he said, was able to pull off the testing because it started a health clinic in 2009 that sees more than 18,000 patients a year.
Record, who leads the now-independent clinic and is on staff of the church, said that last Friday he thought some patients had coronavirus symptoms, but he had no way of testing them. On Saturday, his friend Dr. Ty Thomas of Assurance Scientific Laboratories contacted him saying he wanted to conduct tests the lab had been developing since January. On Sunday, they met with church leaders and on Tuesday they tested 347 patients.
Almost everything is done while the windows are rolled up. Patients take a picture of their paperwork. Once they receive the test results from the lab, the clinic notifies the patient and the Alabama Department of Public Health.
The testing Tuesday mostly went smoothly, Record said, except that the volume of cars in line clogged up a key highway next to a hospital, so leaders moved everything to another campus on Wednesday.
As people are sitting in the parking lot, they can tune into an FM radio station for updates and they can call a number for prayer. In the first hour of testing, they received 321 call-ins, said Church of the Highlands Associate Pastor Layne Schranz.
"People were chaotic in their lives and busy. Now they're sitting still. It's scary to wait," Schranz said. "In unstable times, people want to hold onto a stable God."
People seeking to be tested are given strict instructions to keep their windows rolled up, and that no public restrooms are available.
"We're used to the literal gift of hospitality," Schranz said. "We want to give them great restrooms and give them some snacks and make their time more enjoyable."
Schranz said they are taking it day-by-day but plan to keep testing while there's a demand. He said that other church leaders around the country have reached out to find out if their parking lot could similarly be used for testing.
"You have to have the medical side and you have to have the laboratory side," he said. "Without those, having a large parking lot is no use."
Thankful for the team members who have worked to make today possible. We are continuing to stand in prayer for healing, protection, hope, and peace for our community and world.
We have reached capacity at our testing site today, but will open again at 6:30am tomorrow, March 19. pic.twitter.com/oeCV6GfemU
The megachurch has 22 campuses and is associated with the Association of Related Churches, a nondenominational church-planting network. It has a Pentecostal style of a worship and is known across the state as a church that "gets stuff done," said Collin Hansen, a Birmingham-based editorial director for an evangelical network called The Gospel Coalition.
"We have a lot more trust in our churches than in our government," Hansen said of Alabamians. "These are the folks who show up wearing the bright green T-shirt and clean up your neighbourhood."
Greg Garrison, a religion reporter for the Birmingham News and AL.com, who first reported on the testing, said the testing involved 20 staff from the church, more than 100 volunteers, three people from testing lab and 10 staff from the clinic.
"I'm sure there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the state's largest church being in such a prominent role. The fact of the matter is, they're in a good position to do this," he said. "It's like polling. It's a government thing, it's a civic thing, but sometimes it's most practical to do this at churches."
Garrison said it is probably the most ambitious outreach in doing mass numbers of test in the Birmingham area.
"People are scared and want to get tested," he said. "At this point, I think people are glad that somebody is doing it."
