Rite Aid expands criteria for COVID-19 testing

A lot more people can now get a COVID-19 test at one of Rite Aid’s self-swabbing sites. The company has expanded its criteria for testing, allowing a test for any individual age 18 years old or older with a fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sort throat, and new loss of taste or smell. 
 
Rite Aid currently is operating testing sites at 25 locations in eight states through its partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services.

"From the beginning of this crisis, we made it our mission to support our communities and associates, and to move as quickly as we can to provide solutions. I'm incredibly proud of our pharmacy teams — it's their hard work that has allowed Rite Aid to ramp up testing so quickly and enables us to expand testing criteria to include all adults exhibiting symptoms," said Heyward Donigan, president and CEO of Rite Aid.

The testing sites are open from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. seven days a week, with each capable of conducting roughly 400 tests a day via online appointment. 

"More than 50% of our locations have a drive-through, and all Rite Aid pharmacists know how to order and administer tests," Donigan said. "We are committed to providing more access to COVID-19 self-testing sites and will continue working closely with HHS to explore how we can use our retail locations and expertise to further expand access, testing sites and forms of testing throughout the communities we serve." Donigan recently was among the pharmacy executives who joined President Donald Trump at the White House to update the United States about COVID-19 testing. 

Rite Aid said that it is working with Verily to use its Baseline COVID-19 Program to provide screening, scheduling and return of results to patients. BioReference Labs has been providing testing to all drive-up locations.