Citing a steep rise in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, Banner Wyoming Medical Center announced that they are offering two drive-through COVID-19 testing sites.

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Patients will be evaluated in their cars to determine whether they will go need to go inside the clinic or remain in their car to be evaluated and/or tested.

The two locations are at Sage Primary Care and Mesa Primary Care, and both locations are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Wyoming Medical Center currently has the most patients hospitalized in the state with COVID-19 at 41, while half of the hospitals 22 Intensive Care Unit beds are full.

The test positivity rate in Wyoming has also been increasing rapidly, with the percent of COVID-19 tests that came back positive currently at 26.76%, compared to 6.1% on June 24 and 11.39% on July 24.

The Center for Disease Control currently lists all of Wyoming in an area of high transmission, with one factor they consider being the test positivity rate, which lists the most transmissible areas for COVID-19 as those with a greater than 10% test positivity rate, less than half of Wyoming's current rate.

Mandy Cepeda, director of marketing and public relations for the Banner Wyoming Medical Center, said the drive-through will be open as long as is needed, but she is unsure how long that will be.

This isn't the first when it comes to easily accessible COVID testing, as the Wyoming Health Fairs offered $75 rapid COVID tests last year.

Cepeda said there was a drive-through open for a few months last year and  into 2021, but it was closed due to low use by the public in the spring.

Rebekah Ladd, public information officer with the Casper Police Department, said they are not assisting with daily operation at the drive-through, but helped with traffic flow patterns to avoid congestion.

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