BILLINGS — As COVID cases spike, so does the demand for those at-home tests. Lines of cars wrapped around the parking lot at MetraPark Tuesday to receive at-home kits from RiverStone Health.
“If I get it, I get it,” said Billings resident Mary Ellen Murphy.
Finding a take-home COVID test hasn’t been easy. Most Billings pharmacies are out of them.
“I’ve been after it for a day and a half and there’s none to be found in town,” said Billings resident Steve Allison.
Many at MetraPark were worried that they’d walk away empty-handed, but that wasn’t the case.
“Well, we have 2,520 tests to give out. So far we’ve given out 1,500,” said Emergency Response Manager for Vaccinations, Greg Neill.
RiverStone Health conducted a similar event on Jan, 3, but it only lasted 20 minutes until supply was gone.
That’s one of the reason’s why this event was moved from RiverStone to MetraPark, organizers said.
“The first distribution, I didn’t plan on quite so many people showing up, and we did it at RiverStone Health and we blocked all the roads down there,” Neill said.
More than three times as many kits were handed out this time around. It took about an hour before all vehicles received their tests, but lines were moving right along.
“I’m glad RiverStone is stepping up and doing that because St. V’s and Billings Clinic doesn’t seem to be,” said Allison.
If you didn’t get the chance to grab your own take-home tests, RiverStone Health plans on having more distribution events at MetraPark once they find out when they’ll be getting more tests.
“We have a call on Wednesday with the state and we’ll find out on Wednesday when we’ll get more,” Neill said.
