HCN News & Notes

American Medical Response COVID-19 Testing Site Closing April 1

SPRINGFIELD — American Medical Response (AMR), the city of Springfield’s provider of medical transportation, announced, in collaboration with the Commonwealth’s “Stop the Spread” initiative, the office of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, and the office of Springfield Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris, that the daily “Stop the Spread” COVID-19 testing site at the Eastfield Mall will be indefinitely closed starting April 1.

AMR, partnering with the “Stop the Spread” initiative, first opened the COVID-19 testing site on Aug. 29, 2020. Over the past two and a half years, more than 130 AMR frontline workers administered 455,031 tests that lead to 60,870 positives for coronavirus. The highest number of tests administered in one day was 3,279 on Jan. 3, 2022. In total, more than 225,000 tests were administered to Springfield residents.

“I am grateful to AMR for stepping up to support the ‘Stop the Spread’ initiative,” Caulton-Harris said. “Thanks to their efforts, in partnership with the city of Springfield Department of Health and Human Services, we were able to gauge the penetration of the virus in our community during the onset of the pandemic. The demand and need for a large-scale testing site in a location that was easily accessible for not only Springfield residents but individuals from the surrounding communities was vital.”